350 
SINGING BIRDS. 
make peace, others amused by the fray, all uttering loud and 
discordant chirpings. One of their most common whining 
calls while engaged in collecting seeds in gardens, where they 
seem to be sensible of their delinquency, is 'may be, 'may be. 
They have also a common cry like 'tsheveet 'tshevee, uttered in 
a slender, complaining accent. These and some other twitter- 
ing notes are frequently uttered at every impulse while pursu- 
ing their desultory waving flight, rising and falling as they shut 
or expand their laboring wings. They are partial to gardens 
and domestic premises in the latter end of summer and 
autumn, collecting oily seeds of various kinds and shelling 
them with great address and familiarity, if undisturbed often 
hanging and moving about head downwards, to suit their con- 
venience while thus busily and craftily employed. They have 
a particular fondness for thistle seeds, spreading the down in 
clouds around them, and at this time feeding very silently and 
intently ; nor are they very easily disturbed while thus engaged 
in the useful labor of destroying the germs of these noxious 
weeds. They do some damage occasionally in gardens by 
their indiscriminate destruction of lettuce and flower seeds, 
and are therefore often disliked by gardeners ; but their use- 
fulness in other respects far counterbalances the trifling inju- 
ries they produce. They are very fond, also, of washing and 
bathing themselves in mild weather; and as well as tender 
buds of trees they sometimes collect the Confervas of springs 
and brooks as a variety to their usual fare. 
They raise sometimes two broods in the season, as their 
nests are found from the first week in July to the middle of 
September. In 1831 I examined several nests, and from the 
late period at which they begin to breed it is impossible that 
they can ever act in the capacity of nurses to the Cow 
Troopial. This procrastination appears to be occasioned by 
the lack of sufficiently nutritive diet, the seeds on which they 
principally feed not ripening usually before July. 
Note. — The Black-headed Goldfinch {Spinus notatus), 
a Mexican bird, is credited with an accidental occurrence in 
Kentucky. 
