f delight,
O delicate creature, tiny and slender,
Like a mellow morning sunbeam bright,
Overflowing with music tender?"

At all hours of these enchanted days, whether fair or foul, the winsome
little fellows were flying hither and thither, singing and calling in
ecstatic tones, bounding through the air, and hardly pausing long enough
to eat. July was fast slipping away when the excitement deepened and
matters grew more serious. Then the observer, if he were wary, might
catch occasional glimpses of puzzling scenes, mysteries of bird life
that could not be unraveled because he did not see the whole.

At one time the student came upon a scene like this: Two or three of the
little dames in olive and gold hopping about on an evergreen tree,
ostensibly eating, calling, in their enticing voices, "sw-e-e-t!" and
to all appearance unconscious of the presence of two of their bright
young wooers, sitting in perfect silence on an upper branch. Suddenly
from this happy party one of the damsels flew, when instantly one of the
black-winged suitors flashed out in pursuit. On she went, flying madly,
encircled one tree, dashed to another, and around that, passed up and
down, here and there, this way and that, but everywhere with her
follower close after her, singing at the top of his voice, till they
disappeared in the distance.

Can the goldfinch wooing be a sort of Comanche affair? Is the little
bride won by force? Or is she, perchance, like some of her sisters of
larger growth, who require a "scene" of some sort to make them "name the
day"?

Again, attracted by loud eager singing, the student found a pair who
were apparently fighting,--the peaceful goldfinch! They flew up close
together, they almost clinched, then flew away to a group of trees,
under, over, around, between, through, and beyond they went, never six
inches apart, and he singing furiously all the time. At last, just as
the looker-on expected to see them grapple, they calmly alighted on a
tree eight or ten feet from each other. Nothing but a frolic, obviously!

Another curious performance of this July wooing was several times
noted. Hearing a strange and unfamiliar cry, in a tone of distress, I
drew cautiously near, and found, on a low branch, one of the goldfinch
maidens, uttering the plaintive notes, which, by the way, were
afterwards very common about the nests. She held in her beak something
which might be a tiny green worm, or a bit of nesting materia