Songs of the Fields 



work for a week, and sometimes longer. They use 

 quantities of plant fiber stripped from last year's 

 dead, dry weeds, and line eopiously with thistle 

 and milkweed down. Why such deliberate and 

 daintj" arcliitecture is not conducive to neater home- 

 life is difficult to say; for these exquisite little birds 

 are the filthiest housekeepers I know intimately. 



Nearly all songsters — almost every bird, in 

 fact — M'ith its bill removes from the 3"0ung the 

 excrement, carrj'ing and dropping it far from the 

 nest. The goldfinches have cradles filled to over- 

 flowing, five and six young to the brood, and the 

 elders pay no attention to this feature of parent- 

 hood, so that in a short time their nests are as white 

 outside with a rain of droppings as they are inside 

 with millvM'eed doA\'n. 



The females are olive-green and yellow birds, 

 and the males are similar in winter. In summer 

 they don a nuptial dress, that A\'ith the pure, bub- 

 bling melody of their song must make them irre- 

 sistible. They wear a black cap and sleeves, have 

 a tail touched with black and white, and a pure 

 lemon-yellow waistcoat. They frecjuent gardens, 

 deserted orchards, and roadsides. Their song is of 

 such bubbling spontaneity that they can not re- 

 main on a i^erch to sing it, but go darting in waves 

 of flight over fields and across the road before you, 

 sowing notes broadcast as the wind scatters the 

 seed they love. They haA-e a tribal call that can 



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