BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 3803 
either, so little difference is there in their appearance when on 
the wing or perching a little distance away. But the males of 
the Goldfinches in due time begin to don their courting dress of 
strongly contrasted colors, and become more exclusive in their 
association with their own species until the breeding season is 
over. The song of the Pine Finch is so much like that of 
the other species, that I have only learned to distinguish it by 
its softer tones and lesser volume when both are in act of 
singing. They build their nests about the beginning of the 
second week in June, chiefly of twigs of spruce, or larch, in 
the section where I live, but uniformly of pine where those 
are found, (with which I have found a few coarse hairs from 
the tails of cattle in one or two instances) and line it with 
hairs of different kinds in as pretty a manner as almost any 
nest I have seen. One nest sent from Princeton, had the larg- 
est amount of those coarser hairs in its main composition of 
any I have seen. When these birds are devoted to incubation, 
they are very rarely seen except specially sought for by one 
somewhat familiar with them. Indeed their incognito contin- 
ues until about the second week in August, when families of 
half a dozen may occasionally be seen fiying loosely about the 
backside of a stubble field, lighting here and there on the 
fences, or on the branches of some isolated tree left standing 
in the field for its shade. Later, they may be often detected 
in scattering flocks of the Goldfinches. These two species 
become more and more associated as the season advances, 
until both gradually disappear amongst the latest migrants of 
the fringilline family in November even. I have received but 
little information through my correspondence to aid me in 
forming any approximate idea of the distribution of this spe- 
cies within the territory of my investigations. Of course, the 
principal numbers go still further north to breed, so that it is 
nowhere at any time an abundant species, if the principal por- 
tion of the season of migration is excepted. 
“SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Tail deeply forked. Above brownish-olive; beneath white- 
ish, every feather streaked distinctly with dusky. Concealed 
bases of tail feathers and quills, together with their inner 
edges, sulphur-yellow; outer edges of quills and tail feathers 
yellowish-green. 'Two brownish-white bands on the wing. 
Length, 4.75; wing, 3; tail, 2.20. 
Habitat, North America generally. 
