316 FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETCo 



Female : length (skins) 5.60-6.50, wing 3.80-4.19, tail 2.39-2.78, bill .43- 

 .56. 



Distribution. — Interior of British America; wintering in the Rocky 

 Mountain region of the United States, most abundantly on the eastern 

 slope, and extending to western Nebraska. Recorded as breeding in the 

 Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains in Californiao 



Food. — Ants, small beetles, and other insects, pine seeds and plant 

 seeds. 



The leucostictes are birds of the mountain snow-banks and glaciers. 

 They feed on seeds and insects blown to the heights and left to be 

 picked up about the border of the melting snow. They are often 

 found at an altitude of from 11,000 to 12,000 feet, and under the 

 crest of Mt. Whitney, at about 15,000 feet, Mr. Frank Daggett 

 found a pair picking up insects from a snow-drift. When a hail- 

 storm passed over the peak the birds took refuge under granite 

 slabs, but as soon as it was over they were back on the snow. 



At Fort Keough, Montana, Capt. Thome reports that the leuco- 

 stictes come in November and stay in varying numbers till the last 

 of March, picking up grain in the corrals and often taking shelter in 

 old cliff swallow nests. When it is cold and stormy, he says, they 

 gather in the post by thousands, but when a warm day comes they 

 scatter out again. 



Along the crests of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains and 

 the higher peaks of the Cascade range, the first September snow- 

 storms bring flocks of the rosy finches, scurrying with the driving 

 snow, or, on clear days, basking in the sunshine about the old snow- 

 banks and ice-fields. 



While I was running a line of traps along the slope above Mono 

 Pass in the Sierra Nevada one morning early in September, with my 

 eyes half shut to keep out a fine driving snow% a little flock of nine 

 rosy finches dropped down near me and began getting their breakfast 

 from a last year's snow-bank, hopping about and picking rapidly 

 here and there over the rough surface, fluffing their feathers and 

 facing the cutting wind to keep from being blown away, all the 

 time talking in cheery little notes among themselves. Now and 

 then one would snuggle up in the lee of a chunk of ice or a stone, 

 fluff his feathers, and hold up his feet to warm his toes just as the 

 snowbirds do in winter, then hop out again and pick up more chilled 

 bugs from the surface of the snow, looking up at me with a frank 

 trustfulness that had surely never been betrayed. 



Vernon Bailey. 



524a. L. t. littoralis (Baird). Hepburn Leucostictb. 



Similar to the gray-«rowned, but gray of crown spreading down over 

 sides of head, sometimes covering all but black frontal patch. Male : length 

 (skins) 6.04-6.80, wing 4.00-4.32, tail 2.36-2.75, bill .43-.49. Female: 

 length (skins) 6.08-6.47, wing 3.94-4.10, bill .45-49. 



