220 
THE GOLDFINCH, 
in circumference, and the other three, and about a yard in 
depth. They were built of coarse grass. One of these nests I; 
had seventeen holes in the bottom, by which the birds enter ; I 
the other had seven. At one time, I saw about a hundred 
birds come out of them. Instead of being the nest of a single || 
pair of birds, they seemed to he towns of birds, or the property 
of a single pair, in which they accommodate all their de- 
scendants. A Horned Owl had taken possession of the out- 
side of the roof of the largest for a nest. She was sitting on I 
it, and it appeared, from the hones and hair strewed under, 
that she lived upon the field-mouse. The whole was neatly j 
thatched, and had a hollow in the middle to contain the Owl, 
hut no passage leading to the inside. 
Our Goldfinches partake a good deal of this sociable 
character, for they are usually seen in little flights calling 
each other together, and betraying uneasiness if separated 
from their friends. They are also docile, easily tamed, and 
have occasionally been known to show a certain degree of 
confidence in man, when they found no danger to be appre- 
hended, as the following will prove. In the spring of 1827, 
a Goldfinch had been lost from a cage which was left 
hanging up, and the door open, in the passage-entrance to a 
back court of a house in a country town in the West of 
England ; when a Goldfinch was one morning found feeding 
in it, and the door was closed upon the prisoner ; but, as it 
appeared to be a female, it was shortly after let out again. 
In the course, however, of about two horns it returned, and 
re-entered the cage, when it was again shut in, and once 
more, after a short time, released; and these visits were | 
repeated daily, for a considerable time. She was then missing ! 
for a few days, but then returned, accompanied by a male 
bird ; when she entered the cage and fed as usual, leaving 
her companion, who appeared rather more shy, sitting on the 
outside wires of the cage, from whence he shortly flew to a 
neighbouring tree, until she joined him. They then went 
away, and were absent so long that nobody thought anything 
more about them ; when, at the end of seven or eight weeks, 
she again made her appearance, accompanied not only by her 
