62 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 95 



tiire below freezing, and probably only the more hardy can 

 survive the winter here. 



I once found a dead g-oldfinch strangled by a horse hair 

 that had become entangled in an American thistle. 



Nestling goldfinches appear comparatively free from mo- 

 lestation and usually rear their young. As an illustration 

 there was a swale where the three pairs of goldfinches were 

 undisturbed, while the young in all the Other nests were de- 

 stroyed, consisting of two nests of Song and one of Field 

 Sparrow and one of Cedar Waxwing. 



I once trapped some two dozen goldfinches in September 

 and released them the following i\Iay and shall always re- 

 member them as the embodiment of activity, noise and joy- 

 ous sociability. They were not released direct from the cage, 

 but confined in a box and carried into the country. In May 

 of another year I liberated a mixture of Indigo Buntings and 

 goldfinches from a cage on the roof of an office building in 

 the business section of the city, and when I retired with the 

 cage they were still in sight perched upon the surrounding 

 buildings. It never occurred to me that perhaps some of 

 them might return to the cage. 



I never kept a number of goldfinches through the nesting 

 season, but believe in such a case the birds would develop the 

 natural tendency to mate and breed, or in other words, I 

 doubt that confinement retards the radical changes of the re- 

 production period as shown by the enlargement of the sexual 

 organs, etc. ; anyhow, the male American Goldfinch has been 

 exported to Europe, where the bird fanciers have produced 

 hybrids bv crossing it with the domestic canary, while so 

 common are European Goldfinch-canary hybrids, that speci- 

 mens are always on the market. They have also crossed the 

 Indigo Bunting with the domestic canary, but the resultant 

 Ijybrids are said to be of plain plumage, somewhat resembling 

 the female Indigo. 



From what I have said the reader must not be misled into 

 believing that I sanction the indiscriminate caging of birds. 

 One must have a natural interest in them and thoroughly un- 



