GROUND FINCHES. 
170 
such as wasps, hornets, and humhle-hees, and also of 
fruit, particularly those of that species of Vaccinium 
usually called huckle-berries, which, iu their season, 
form almost his whole fare. Ilis nest is built about 
the middle of May, on the horizontal branch of a 
tree, sometimes an apple-tree, and is but slightly put 
together : stalks of broken flax, and dry grass, so 
thinly woven togetlier that the light is easily per- 
ceivable through it, form the repository of his young. 
The eggs are three, of a dull brown, spotted with 
brown or purple. They rarely raise more than four 
broods ill a season, and leave us for the south about 
the last week in Auo-ust. 
o • 
Among all the birds that inhabit our Avoods, there 
is none that strikes the eye of a stranger, or even a 
native, with so much brilliancy as this. 8een among 
tlie green leaves, with the light falling strongly on his 
jflumage, he really appears beautiful. If he has little , 
melody in his notes to charm us, he has nothing in 
them to disgust. His manners are modest, easy, and 
inoftensive. He commits no depredations on the 
property of the husbandman, but rather benefits him 
by the daily destruction, in spring, of many noxious 
insects ; and when winter approaches he is no phmder- 
ing dependant, but seeks, in a distant country, for 
that sustenance which the severity of the season 
denies to his industry in this. He is a striking 
ornament to our rural scenery, and none of the 
meanest of our rural songsters.* 
The last division of the Fringillidcd is composed of 
the Bullfinches, forming the sub-family FyrrhuUnco, 
* American Ornithology. 
