176 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
habit of rushing quickly a little way up; then paus- 
ing, and again creeping swiftly another foot, or so, 
and are so absorbed in their pursuit that they are easily 
approached and observed. 
Who can stay indoors when the goldfinches are 
busy among the bloom on the apple trees? A flood 
of sunshine falling through a roof of rosy pink and 
delicate white blossom overhead ; underneath, grass. 
deeply green with the vigour of spring, dotted with 
yellow buttercups, and strewn with bloom shaken by 
the wind from the trees: is not this better than for- 
mal-patterned carpets, and the white flat ceilings that 
weigh so heavily upon the sight? Listen how happy 
the goldfinches are in the orchard. Summer after 
summer they build in the same trees—bushy-headed 
codlings; generation after generation has been born 
there and gone forth to enjoy in turn the pleasures of 
the field. 
A year—nay, a single summer—must be a long 
time in their chronology, for they are so very very 
busy: a bright sunshiny day must be like a month to 
them. Now coquetting, now splashing at the sandy 
edge of a shallow streamlet till the golden feathers 
glisten from the water and the red topknot shines, 
away again along the hedgerow searching for seeds, 
singing all the while, and the tiny heart beating so 
rapidly as to compress twice as many beats of emotion 
into the minute as our sluggish organizations are 
capable of. Though a path much frequented by the 
