Purple Finch 
127 
sparrow that had been dipped into a bath of 
raspberry juice and left out in the sun to fade. 
But only the mature males wear this colour, 
which is deepest on their head, rump, and breast. 
Their sons are decidedly sparrowy until the 
second year and their wives look so much like 
the song sparrows that you must notice their 
heavy, rounded bills and forked tails to make 
sure they are not their cousins. A purple 
finch that had been caged two years gradually 
turned yellow, which none of his kin in the wild 
state has ever been known to do. Why? No 
ornithologist is wise enough to tell us, for the 
colour of birds is still imperfectly understood. 
Like the goldfinches, these finches wander 
about in flocks. You see them in the hemlock 
and spruce trees feeding on the buds at the tips 
of the branches, in the orchard pecking at the 
blossoms on the fruit trees, in the wheat fields 
with the goldfinches destroying the larvae of 
the midge, or by the roadsides cracking the 
seeds of weeds that are too hard to open for birds 
less stout of bill. When it is time to nest, these 
finches prefer evergreen trees to all others, al- 
though orchards sometimes attract them. 
A sudden outbreak of spirited, warbled song 
in March opens the purple finch’s musical sea- 
son, which is almost as long as the song spar- 
row’s. Subdued nearly to a humming in 
October, it is still a delightful reminder of the 
