GOLDFINCH. 



Spinus tristis StejnEGER. 



Plate XV. Fig. 5. 



Let us be alivays out of doors among the trees and 

 grass and rain and wind and sun. Let us get out of these 

 in-door, narrow modem days, whose twelve hours somehow 

 have become shortened, into the sunlight and the pure wind. 

 A something that the ancients called divine can be found 

 and felt there stin. Richard Jeffkies. 



^UR sprightly little Goldfinch is pre-eminently a summer bird. It does not take 

 part in the jubilee of spring when the true harbingers of the early season, the 

 Robins, Bluebirds, and Song Sparrows make the air resound with their sweet music. Even 

 later, w^hen the wild plum trees, the viburnum bushes, the June-berry trees, and other 

 shrubs blossom on the woodland border, when the rosy flower buds of the apple trees 

 open, w^e scarcely notice one of these birds. At this time the flowering orchard trees swarm 

 with bright-colored Warblers, and in the tender foliage of the maples and elms the Balti- 

 more Oriole sparkles like a flame. The Scarlet Tanager, the most beautiiul and refined bird 

 of our country, and the far-famed Rose-breasted Grosbeak are heard on all sides. The 

 songs of both are exceedingly melodious and beautifal. In the w^oods we find now a 

 host of handsome flowers, among them the blue polemonium and the white trillium. 

 A little later, in June, we now^ and then discover a beautiful yellow lady's slipper grow^- 

 ing vigorously in the spongy soils of shady w^oods. Most of the birds are breeding now^, 

 and nests are found everywhere. The Goldfinch lingers till the gorgeous summer flowers 

 open. "Not until the advent of summer do the brilliant large flowers appear; the spring 

 flora is smaller, more delicate, and generally more ephemeral. You must stoop down 

 for the spring flowers ; the summer flowers reach up to you. The procession formed in 

 May and augmented in June moves steadily through July, when wild lilies blaze and 

 tall habenarias lift their purple spires ; it moves onward during August over stubbles 

 gay with vervains and willow-herb, and meadows fi-agrant with trumpet weed ; it files 

 more slowly in September along streams flaming with cardinal flowers and lanes lighted 

 by golden-rod ; until it halts and breaks ranks in late October, crowned with aster and 

 everlasting, and strewed with painted maple leaves. Do w^e half appreciate these summer 

 days? We long for them in winter, and w^ish the months were w^eeks, to bring them 

 nearer to us. Let us enjoy them w^hen they come ; let us get nearer to this joyous life 

 of nature, and join in the procession of flowers. 



"You would know by the scent of the lilacs that summer was here. How fragrant 

 the censer of June! how profuse with the scent of blossoming vegetation! — odors not 

 alone from myriads of plants, but breathing from orchards, hedges, and thickets, rising 

 from woods and hill-sides, blown fi-om far meadows and pastures. What an exhalation 

 of millions of open petals, mingled with the scent of green growing things! It seems as 

 if nature could not do enough when her appointed time arrives ; as if there were no 

 end to her prodigality of bloom and song and color and sunshine: birds singing amid 



