PINE SISKIN. 
351 
PINE SISKIN. 
PINE FINCH. PINE LINNET. 
Spinus pinus. 
Char. Above, olive brown or dark flaxen, streaked with dusky ; 
wings and tail black, the feathers edged with yellow ; wings with two 
huffish bars; below streaked with dusky and yellowish white. Length 
about 4^4^ inches. 
Nest. Usually in a deep forest, on a horizontal branch of an evergreen 
tree 20 to 40 feet from the ground. It is fairly well built, as a rule, 
but is neither as compact nor graceful as the Thistle Bird’s, and is com- 
posed of various materials, though generally grass, twigs, and pine-needles 
form the exterior, while the lining is either feathers or hair, or both. 
Eggs. 3—5 ; pale green or greenish blue spotted with light reddish 
brown and lilac; 0.70 X o.JO. 
Our acquaintance with this little northern Goldfinch is very 
unsatisfactory. It visits the Middle States in November, fre- 
quents the shady, sheltered borders of creeks and rivulets, and 
is particularly fond of the seeds of the hemlock-tree. Among 
the woods, where these trees abound, these birds assemble in 
flocks, and contentedly pass away the winter. Migrating for 
no other purpose Init subsistence, their visits are necessarily 
desultory and uncertain. My friend Mr. Oakes, of Ipswich, 
has seen them in large flocks in that vicinity in winter. tVith 
us they are rare, though their favorite food is abundant. They 
are by no means shy, and permit a near approach without tak- 
ing alarm, often fluttering among the branches in which they 
feed, hanging sometimes by the cones, and occasionally utter- 
ing notes very similar to those of the American Goldfinch. 
Early in March they proceed to the North, and my friend 
Audubon observed them in families, accompanied by their 
young, in Labrador in the month of July. They frequented 
low thickets in the vicinity of water, and were extremely fear- 
less and gentle. Their summer plumage, as we have since 
also found in the Oregon Territory, where they abound and 
breed, is entirely similar to the garb in which they visit us in 
the winter, with the sole exception that the yellow of the wings 
is brighter. 
