_Finches._――The _Song Sparrow_ is the most generally diffused over the United States, and is the most numerous of all our sparrows; and it is far the earliest, sweetest, and most lasting songster. Many of them remain during the whole winter in close-sheltered meadows and swamps. It is the first singing bird in spring. Its song continues through the summer and fall, and is sometimes heard even in the depths of winter. The notes or chant are short but very sweet, and frequently repeated, from a small bush or tree, where it sits chanting for an hour together. It is fond of frequenting the borders of rivers, meadows and swamps; and, if wounded and unable to fly, will readily take to the water, and swim with considerable rapidity. There are other familiar species of sparrows, as the _Chipping_, _Field_, and _Tree_, _Yellow-winged_, and _White-throated_ sparrows. The _Indigo Bird_ is numerous in the middle and eastern states, and in the Carolinas and Georgia. Its favorite haunts are about gardens, fields of clover, borders of woods, and road sides, where it is frequently seen perched on fences. In its manners it is extremely neat and active, and a vigorous and pretty good songster. It mounts to the tops of the highest trees, and chants for half an hour at a time. Its song is not one continued strain, but a repetition of short notes, commencing loud and rapid, and falling by slow gradations till they seem hardly articulate, as if the little minstrel were quite exhausted; but after a pause of half a minute, it commences again as before. Notwithstanding the beauty of his plumage, and the vivacity of his song, the indigo bird is seldom seen domesticated. Its nest is built in a low bush among rank grass, grain, or clover, suspended by two twigs, one passing up each side, and is composed of flax, and lined with grass. This bird is five inches long, the whole body of a rich sky-blue, deepening in color toward the head, and sometimes varying to green. The _Yellow Bird_, or _Goldfinch_, bears a great resemblance to the canary, and in song is like the goldfinch of Britain, but it is in general weak. In the spring, they associate in flocks, to bask and dress themselves in the morning sun, singing in concert for half an hour together; the confused mingling of their notes forming a kind of harmony not at all unpleasant. Their flight is not direct, but in alternate risings and sinkings, twittering as they fly at each successive impulse of the wings. They search the gardens in numbers, in quest of seeds, and pass by various names, such as lettuce-bird, sallad-bird, thistle-bird, yellow-bird. They are very easily tamed. The goldfinch is four inches and a half in length: the male is of a rich lemon color. The wings and tail are black, edged with white. In the fall, this color changes to a brown olive, which is the constant color of the female. They build a nest in the twigs of an apple tree, neatly formed of lichen and soft downy substances.