280 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 past i 



Winter range. — Winters from southwestern British Columbia south 

 to central western Baja California (San Ramon, Santo Domingo), 

 east to southeastern California (Death Valley, Twentynine Palms), 

 and Arizona (Grand Canyon, Huachuca and Santa Rita mountains). 



Casual records. — Casual in New Alexico (Silver City). 



Egg dates. — California: 50 records, April 13 to July 25; 40 records, 

 May 7 to May 28. 



CARPODACUS CASSINII Baird 



Cassin's Finch 



PLATE 16 



Contributed by Robert Thomas Orr 



Habits 



Cassin's finch is a bird of the high, cool, semiarid, coniferous forests 

 of western North America. Locally, its range may overlap that of 

 either the other two species of Carpodacus found in this general area, 

 the house finch and the California purple finch. However, the house 

 finch generally prefers situations that are lower altitudinally and 

 warmer, while the Cahfornia purple finch is largely confined to moist, 

 shaded forests at low and middle elevations. 



In Tuolumne County, Calif., on June 10, 1950, I made a point of 

 examining an area where both Cassin's finches and California purple 

 finches occur. During the course of a morning walk just west of 

 Strawberry Lake the purple finch was found to outnumber Cassin's 

 by about four to one. The elevation was approximately 5,600 feet, 

 and the forest was composed of yellow pine, sugar pine, lodgepole 

 pine, white fir, and mcense cedar. On the afternoon of the same day 

 along Herring Creek, 4K miles to the northeast, at an elevation of 

 about 7,300 feet, California purple finches were absent while Cassin's 

 finches were numerous. Here the forest consisted largely of lodgepole 

 pine with scatterings of aspen. 



Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) make the following comments 

 regarding Cassin's finch in the Lassen region of California: 



This finch was found in loose companies or singly, on the ground or in tree tops, 

 usually in rather open forest growths. Activity of one sort or another was defi- 

 nitely noted in types of trees exemplified by the following: white alders along 

 streamlet, aspen, lodgepole pine, yellow pine, hemlock, small red fir. These trees 

 were used for singing and resting perches and sometimes as foraging places, while 

 a greater share of the foraging for food took place on the ground in clearings or at 

 the edges of forest bordering large meadows * * *. 



A review of all the field notes gathered by us leaves the impression that the cen- 

 ter of the summer metropolis of this purple finch lies within the red fir belt, in 

 other words, within the Canadian life-zone. 



