474 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



feet from the ground. Than the ne.st of our Goldfinch we have no more beau- 

 tiful specimen cither of the liasket in sliape or tlie felted in .structure. Sym- 

 metrical in form, delicately and beautifully woven, and ingeniously and firmly 

 fastened around the forked twigs with wliich it is interlaced, it is an exqui- 

 site example of arcliitectural beauty and finish. A beautiful specimen from 

 Wisconsin may be taken as typical. It measures three inches in diameter 

 and two in height. The cavity is one and a iialf iiiclies wide at the rim, and 

 the deptli is the same. The base of this nest is a commingling of soft vege- 

 table wool, very fine stems of dried grasses, and fine strips of bark, all being 

 in very fine shrcids. The sides, rim, and general exterior of the nest is made 

 up, to a large extent, of fine slender vegetable fibres, interwrought with 

 white and maroon-colored vegetable wool. These materials are closely and 

 densely felted togetlier. Tlie inner nest is softly and thoroughly lined with 

 a softer felting made of the plumose api)eadages or pappus of the; seeds of 

 com])osite plants. 



The eggs, usually five, rarely six in number, are of a unilbi-m bluisli-white, 

 sharply pointed at one and ruundcd at tlu! otlier end. They measure from 

 .65 to .67 of an incli in length and from S)U to .55 in breadth. Dr. Cooper 

 gives their measurement as .60 by .50 ; but of tlie conttmts of seven nests 

 before me not an egg is less than .65 in length, and but one so small as .50 

 in breadth. 



A nest of this Finch, built in a young elm-tree in Ilinghani, eight feet from 

 the ground, was begun July 27, finished and the fir.st egg laid August 1. By 

 the 4th five eggs had been deposited, and on the Kith tlicy had all been 

 hatched. 



Chrysomitris psaltria, var. psaltria, r.oNAP. ,, ."' r 



EOCKY MOUNTAIN GOLDFINCH ; ARKANSAS GOLDFINCH. ^ , 



y-'C^ 'I 



Frinfiilla psaltria, Sat, Long's Exped. R. Mts. II, 1823, 40. — Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 



85, pi. cccxciv. Fringilla (Cardudis) psaltria, Bon. Am. Oni. 1, 182.5, .54, pi. vi, f. 3. 



Cardudis psaltria, AuD. Syn. 1839, 117. — Ib. Birds Am. Ill, 1841, 134, pi. clxxxiii. 



Chrysomitris psaltria, Br. Li.st, 1838. — Id. Consp. 1850, 516. — Gambki., .lour. A. N. 



S. 2d series I, 1847, 52 (female). — Baikd, Birds N. Am. 1858, 422. — Coopeu, Orn. 



Cal. I, 168. 



Sp. Char. Male. Upper parts and .sides of head and neck olive-groen. Hood, but 

 not sides of head below eyes, lores (or auricular? ?), upper tail-covorts, wing.s, and tail black. 

 Beneath briglit yellow. A band across the tips of the greater coverts, the ends of nearly 

 all the quill.s, the outer edges of the tertiaries, the extreme bases of all the primaries ex- 

 cept the outer two, and a long rectangular patch on the inner webs of the outer three 

 tail-foathers near the middle, white. Female with the upper parts generally, and the sides 

 olive-green ; the wings and tail brown, their white marks as in the male. Length, 4.2.5 ; 

 wing, 2.40 ; tail, 1.85. Younrj like the female, but wing-bands more fulvous. 



Hab. Southern Rocky Mountains to the coast of California; north to Salt Lake City 

 (June 19 ; Ridgway), and Siskiyou Co., Cal. (Vuillk) ; south to Sonora (Arispe, Feb. 

 26 ; E. S. WAKEriELD). 



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