o delicately organized should choose to live in
the regions about the North Pole! Why should they prefer Labrador and
Greenland, Iceland and Spitzbergen, to more southern countries? Why?
Well, possibly for no worse a reason than this, that these are the lands
of their fathers. Other birds, it may be, have grown discouraged, and
one after another ceased to come back to their native shores as the
rigors of the climate have increased; but these little patriots are
still faithful. Spitzbergen is home, and every spring they make the long
and dangerous passage to it. All praise to them!

If any be ready to call this an over-refinement, deeming it incredible
that beings so small and lowly should come so near to human sentiment
and virtue, let such not be too hasty with their dissent. Surely they
may in reason wait till they can point to at least one country where the
men are as universally faithful to their wives and children as the birds
are to theirs.

The red-poll linnets, as I have said, are irregular visitors in this
region; several years may pass, and not one be seen; but the goldfinch
we have with us always. Easily recognized as he is, there are many
well-educated New-Englanders, I fear, who do not know him, even by
sight; yet when that distinguished ornithologist, the Duke of Argyll,
comes to publish his impressions of this country, he avers that he has
been hardly more interested in the "glories of Niagara" than in this
same little yellow-bird, which he saw for the first time while looking
from his hotel window at the great cataract. "A golden finch, indeed!"
he exclaims. Such a tribute as this from the pen of a British nobleman
ought to give _Astragalinus tristis_ immediate entrance into the very
best of American society.

It is common to say that the goldfinches wander about the country during
the winter. Undoubtedly this is true in a measure; but I have seen
things which lead me to suspect that the statement is sometimes made too
sweeping. Last winter, for example, a flock took up their quarters in a
certain neglected piece of ground on the side of Beacon Street, close
upon the boundary between Boston and Brookline, and remained there
nearly or quite the whole season. Week after week I saw them in the same
place, accompanied always by half a dozen tree sparrows. They had found
a spot to their mind, with plenty of succory and evening primrose, and
were wise enough not to forsake it for any uncertainty.

The gold