Arizona Goldfinch 345 



In Colorado the Arkansas Goldfinch is a common summer bird, 

 especially in the southern parts of the State ; it is far less abundant 

 north of the Arkansas -Platte Divide, but has been taken as far as 

 Cheyenne, just over the Wyoming border. It is a late comer i^om the 

 south, as a rule not appearing before June, but Aiken has taken it at 

 Colorado Springs as early as April 20th, while in the fall it does not 

 leave till the end of October or beginning of November, Beaver Creek 

 Fremont cc, November 11th (Aiken collection) is the latest date I 

 have met with. It is chiefly found in the plains and foothills, but 

 goes up into the mountains as high at least as 9,000 feet (Crested 

 Butte, Gunnison co. Warren). Other localities are : Boulder co. 

 (Henderson), near Denver (Morrison), Pueblo (Aiken apud Henshaw), 

 Meeker and Steamboat Springs (Cary), Glenwood Springs, breeding 

 (Cooke), Bedrock (Warren), Animas River, San Juan co. (Drew), Fort 

 Lewis, breeding (Morrison). 



Habits. — Like the other Goldfinches, this species is 

 generally seen in flocks in waste places where thistles 

 and other weeds grow ; and on the seeds of these it chiefly 

 feeds. Little has been recorded about its nesting habits, 

 which seem to resemble those of the other Goldfinches ; 

 Morrison found a nest in a cotton-wood sapling, at Fort 

 Lewis, while a photograph of a nest containing two 

 eggs, evidently built in a scrub-oak bush, near Beulah, 

 Pueblo CO., taken by H. W. Nash, is here reproduced 

 (Plate 14, Fig. 2). 



Arizona Goldfinch. Astragalinus psaltria arizonce. 



A.O.U. Checklist (2nd ed.) no 530a — Colorado Records — Morrison 

 89, p. 36 ; Cooke 97, pp. 99, 213. 



Description. — Closely resembling A. psaltria, but the olive-green of 

 the back intermixed with black in varying amounts ; dimensions 

 about the same ; females indistinguishable from the typical form. 



Distribution.— The south-western borders of the United States from 

 western Texas to California, north to Colorado, south to north-west 

 Mexico. In Colorado this form of the Arkansas Goldfinch is a rather 

 rare summer bird ; it has been taken as far north as Loveland and 

 Golden by Professor Osburn in the breeding season, and there are 

 several examples in the Aiken collection from Colorado Springs, killed 

 in August, and from Fremont co. It was found breeding at Glenwood 

 Springs by Wm. Cross and in La Plata co. by Morrison. 



