GOLDFINCH. 539 
sanction, by adoption, of Baron Cuvier, and several other 
naturalists. These birds belong to M. Temminck’s third 
section of the Finches, G'ros-bec, distinguished by the term 
Longicones. 
Gay plumage, lively habits, an agreeable form and song, 
with a disposition to become attached to those who feed 
them, are such strong recommendations, that the Goldfinch 
has been, and will probably long continue to be, one of the 
most general cage favourites. So well also do the birds of 
this species bear confinement, that they have been known to 
live ten years in captivity, continuing in song the greater 
part of each year. This tendency to sing and call make 
them valuable as brace birds, decoy birds, and call birds, to 
be used by the bird-catcher with his ground nets; while the 
facility with which others are captured, the numbers to be 
obtained, and the constant demand for them by the public, 
render the Goldfinch one of the most important species in- 
cluded within the bird-dealer’s traffic. 
Goldfinches, and the small Finches generally, are also 
favourites on another account: they are taught, without 
much difficulty, to perform a variety of amusing tricks, 
such as to draw up water for themselves by a small thimble- 
sized bucket, or to raise the lid of a small box to obtain 
the seed within. Mr. Syme, in his History of British 
Song Birds, when speaking of the Sieur Roman, who some 
years since exhibited Goldfinches, Linnets, and Canaries, 
wonderfully trained, relates, that one appeared dead, and 
was held up by the tail or claw, without exhibiting any 
signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in 
the air; a third imitated a Dutch milk-maid going to 
market with pails on its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a 
Venetian girl looking out at a window ;. a fifth appeared as 
a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel; and the sixth 
acted as a cannoneer, with a cap on its head, a firelock on 
