bearing summer in their natures . . .. I am struck by the perfect confidence and success of Nature.”
- Length
- 4.80—5.20 inches.
- Male
- Body, all but wings, tail, and frontlet. a clear gamboge-yellow. Frontlet black. Wings black, varied with white. Tail blackish with spots of white on interior of quills. Bill and feet flesh-coloured. In September the black frontlet of the male disappears, his colours pale, and he resembles the female and young. In April the spring moult begins, and often is not completed until middle May.
- Female
- Above brownish olive, below yellowish.
- Song
- A wild, sweet, Canary-like warming. Call note, “Ker—chee-chee-chee, whew-é, whew-é!”
- Season
- Resident in this section, but the numbers increase in May and diminish in October.
- Breeds
- Sonthward to the middle districts of the United States (to about the Potomac and Ohio rivers, Kansas, and California).
- Nest
- Round, very neat, and compact; of grass and moss, lined with seed and plant down, usually in a branch crotch.
- Eggs
- 4—6, blue-white. generally unmarked.
- Range
- North America generally, wintering mostly south of the northern boundary of the United States.
The American Goldfinch, known under many titles, is as familiar as the Robin, Catbird, and Wren, but its beauty and winning ways always seem new and interesting. In southern Connecticut, as well as in locations further north and east, it is resident, and is revealed through its various disguises of plumage by its typical dipping flight.
Its spring song begins early in April, though its plumage does not resume the perfect yellow until late May; the song remains at its height all through July and well into August, but ceases, almost abruptly, at the end of that month (from the 20, to the 30, according to Mr. Bicknell).
These Goldfinches do not mate until June, and sometimes not until the last half of the month. They always choose
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