The Green-backed Goldfinch 



Authorities. — Gambel, Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., ser. 2. vol. i., 1847, pp. 52-53 

 (habits and nesting); Atkinson, Oologist, vol. xi., 1894, pp. 240-241 (habits); Ridgway, 

 Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., no. 50, pt. i.. 1901, pp. 115-116 (crit. re arizonm) ; Grinnell, Con- 

 dor, vol. iv., 1902, pp. 115-116 (crit.); Oberhoher, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., vol. xvi., 1903, 

 p. 116 (desc. of hesperophilus) ; Beal, Biol. Surv. Bull., no. 34, 1910, pp. 73-75, pi. 

 vi. (food); Chambers, W.L., Condor, vol. xvii., 1915, p. 166 (nesting). 



_ THE GREEN-BACKED Goldfinch 



is, after the "Linnet," possibly the most 

 abundant numerically of the breeding birds 

 of central and western California. That 

 he is not also the most familiar can be due 

 only to carelessness or inattention on the 

 part of a too easily satisfied public. Gen- 

 tle, trustful, dainty, musical, inoffensive, 

 sociable, and abundant — these adjectives 

 certainly entitle their subject to the fullest 

 recognition on the part of Californians. 

 The Green-back, too, is a bird of all 

 seasons. It is well distributed at nesting 

 time, insomuch that a bird-lover may 

 scarcely cock his ears out of doors with- 

 out catching the plaintive sweetness of 

 the keyring call, near or remote. Spring 

 or summer, little companies of them will 

 foregather in the shade trees and raise a 

 little hurricane of song, breathless gladness 

 of childhood welling from a hundred child- 

 ish throats. In the autumn the Goldies 

 make common cause with the flocking 

 Linnets, and glean from the roadside, 

 or else straggle over the weedy meadows 

 by the thousand. At such a time the 

 telephone wires bear more than messages, 

 and what they carry is of more worth, 

 to my notion, than nine-tenths of what 

 passes unheeded beneath the birdies' toes. 

 There is no flock impulse or solidarity of 

 action among goldfinches. A great com- 

 pany scattered over the ground will melt 

 away somehow before the invader; but 

 the fear-thought is absent, and there is none to cry, Beware! 



The pitch and volume rather than the cadence of the Green-backs' 



n in Santa Barbara Courtly 

 Photo by the Author 



GREENBACK IN TECALOTE 



192 



