. . . A few breed in Kentucky and the State of Ohio, but the Middle Districts are their principal places of resort during summer, although they extend their migrations to a high latitude.

. . . So fond of each other’s company are they, that a party of them passing on the wing will alter its course at the calling of a single one perched on a tree.  This call is uttered with much emphasis . . . no sooner has the flock, previously on wing, alighted, than the whole party plume themselves, and then perform a little sweet concert.  So much does the song of our Goldfinch resemble that of the European species, that whilst in France and England, I have frequently thought, that they were the notes of our own bird which I heard.

. . . In ascending along the shores of the Mohawk river, in the month of August, I have met more of these pretty birds in the course of a day’s walk than anywhere else . . . for a considerable space along the Gennessee river, the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and even Lake Superior, I have always seen many of them in the latter part of summer.

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 172-174 [excerpted].