12 WISCONSIN BIRD-STUDY BULLETIN. 



goldfinches are a happy, jolly, care-free lot of rovers. They seem to 

 be strongly attached to each other and prolong the life in the fiock 

 well into the summer; then they go off in pairs to begin their house 

 making and house keeping duties in the crotch of some bush or tree. 



From the viewpoint of the farmer and gardener the goldfinch is 

 a most desirable neighbor. He takes no liberties with anything that 

 man in his selfishness has tried to appropriate to his own exclusive 

 use. He is not only negatively good, he is very positively good. He 

 is one of the unpaid but very efficient assistants of the weed conunis- 

 sioner, and never hesitates to invade a thistle patch for fear of hurt- 

 ing the feelings of the owner of the land, nor for fear of injuring his 

 own chances of reelection. He helps with the dandelions and plan- 

 tain, with the ragweed and dock. He is fond of sunflower seeds but 

 gets hardly a taste of them if English sparrows are about. 



These beautiful birds are more than weed-seed destroyers. Like 

 their relatives, the finches and sparrows, they feed their young on in- 

 sects and thus help to hold in check the beetles and grasshoppers and 

 the rest of that pestilential army: 



