THE AMER T f’4N GOLDFINCH. 
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f 52 
ful cadence, that their music, at times, seems 44 to float on the 
distant breeze, scarcely louder than the hum of bees;” it then 
breaks out, as it were, into a crescendo , which rends the air like 
the loud song of the Canary. 
In confinement, the yellow bird soon becomes familiar and 
reconciled, its song being nearly as animated and sonorous 
as its transatlantic congener. According to Mr. Audubon, it is 
extremely hardy, often remaining the whole winter in the 
Middle States, and when deprived of liberty, will live to a great 
age in a room or cage. 44 1 have known two instances,” says 
he, 44 in which a bird of this species had been confined for 
upwards of ten years. They were procured in the market of 
New York, when in mature plumage, and had been caught in 
trap cages. One of them having undergone the severe train- ‘ 
ing, more frequently inflicted in Europe than America, and 
known in France by the name of galerien , would draw water 
for its drink from a glass, it having a little chain attached to a 
narrow belt of soft leather fastened round its body, and another 
equally light chain fastened to a little bucket, kept by its 
weight in the water, until the little fellow raised it up with its 
bill, placed a foot upon it, and pulled again at the chain until 
it reached the desired fluid and drank, when, on letting go, the 
bucket immediately fell into the glass below. In the same 
manner, it was obliged to draw towards its bill a little charriot 
filled with seeds; and in this distressing, occupation was 
doomed to toil through a life of solitary grief, separated from 
its companions, wantoning on the wild flowers, and procuring 
» their food in the manner in which nature had taught them.” 
The food of the American goldfinch consists chiefly of the 
seeds of the various species of thistles, lettuce, hemp, and sun¬ 
flower; and in winter, when its more agreeable food is not 
found in sufficient abundance, it resorts to the fruit and seeds 
of the elder. It also collects the tender buds of trees, as well 
as the confervas of brooks and springs, as a variety of its 
usual fare. 
These birds occasionally do some damage to gardens by 
a their indis :riminate destruction of lettuce and flower seeds, a 
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