28 Bird Portraits 



Though the Goldfinches are here all winter, they delay nesting 

 till very much later than the other resident birds ; the Chickadees 

 have their first brood already out in . the world by the time the 

 Goldfinches determine on building. The female is a modest-colored 

 little body, as is often the case where the male is bright. The pair 

 generally build in July, and choose some thick leafy tree, often a 

 maple or poplar, and there, on a limb at a considerable height from 

 the ground, construct a very neat nest, deep and cup-shaped, built 

 of fine materials and lined with down from plants like the thistle. 

 Here five or six bluish white eggs are laid, and when in another 

 month the young Goldfinches begin to fly, it is at once evident from 

 their sharp, insistent crying. As the calling of the young Orioles is 

 a mark of late June, so the notes of the young Goldfinches become 

 associated with August. 



Goldfinches are very fond of the seeds of many kinds of com- 

 posite flowers; they bite holes in unripe dandelion heads and take 

 out the seeds ; thistles are another favorite food, and a row of 

 sunflowers planted in the garden will not fail to attract them. In 

 winter, besides the seeds of weeds, they feed on birch seeds, scattering 

 the scales over the snow, and they even pull out the seeds of the 

 pitch pine, when the scales begin to loosen toward spring. 



No bird has livelier, more cheerful ways than our Goldfinch, and 

 none becomes a greater favorite. People are often at considerable 

 pains to remove the dandelion plants from their lawns; if the gay 

 flowers themselves do not repay one for their presence, many would 

 certainly allow them to remain in order to have the pleasant spectacle, 

 in summer, of a flock of yellow Goldfinches scattered about the grass 

 and feeding on the seeds. 



