ITS HABITS AND FOOD. 
No one more eagerly champions tlie canse of the wild gold- 
finch than Air. Bobert Aludie. Not only does the gentleman 
exonerate the bird from the host of serious charges brought 
against it, but he most emphatically declares, and adduces the 
clearest argument to support his declaration, that it is a most 
valuable friend to the farmer. “ It is a maxim hi farming, 
that where the hedges and lanes are foul, the fields never can 
be clean, and countless instances may be seen in England and 
in Aliddlesex, not less than in more remote places, where the 
farmer gives half of what his land might produce to the weeds, 
just because he will not grub up some green lane or incon- 
venient corner, but retains it as an ever-productive nursery of 
the most destructive species. But though these accumulations 
of unseemly parts spoil or diminish the harvest of the farmer, 
they yield an ample autumnal and winter supply for the gold- 
finch. 
“ When they disperse for the summer, the goldfinches do 
not retire very far outward on the bleak moor, or far upward 
up the hill, or into the forest. If the state of the land is 
slovenly, they remain among the lower fields, in numbers pro- 
portioned to the food that there is for them ; and as no human 
art can folly extirpate or keep extirpated plants, the seeds of 
which career over the country at nearly the same rate with 
the winds, there are always goldfinches nestling in the gardens 
and copses, and among the bushes, and even the thick tufts of 
nettles on the lower ground. But the goldfinches do not 
inhabit the marshes, the naked tare or corn fields, that are 
free from composite or cruciferous weeds ; nor do they give the 
preference to places near the margin of waters or otherwise, 
where insects may be presumed to be most abundant. 
“ Hence, it is reasonable to conclude, that the goldfinch is 
more exclusively a seed-bird than other birds of the order ; and 
perhaps it is entirely so ; but although its food is vegetable, it 
does not eat the seeds of the grasses or of grain-plants, though 
it does sometimes commit considerable ravages upon those of 
the cruciferous plants, and also the trefoils, where these are 
cultivated. Its chief food, however/ consists of seeds of plants, 
which are equally injurious to corn-fields or pastures ; and 
therefore it is one of those birds which, altogether independently 
of its own beauty and its song, claims the protection of the 
farmer, as one of the grand natural conservators of the green 
carpet of earth.” 
Traps and Shares for Goldfinches. — For my part I con- 
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