HOUSE rmcH 291 



sale as 'Hollywood finches.' Alert agents of the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service spotted this violation of the International Migratory Bird 

 Treaty Act and quickly put an end to the traffic. To avoid prosecu- 

 tion the New York dealers released their birds. The species was soon 

 noted in the wild on nearby Long Island, and it has slowly been in- 

 creasing its range ever since. The Mexican House Finch has now 

 pushed northvv^ard into Connecticut and southward into New Jersey. 

 It has also been introduced to Hawaii." On Feb. 26, 1963, a young 

 male was collected at Zebulon, N.C., a considerable southward 

 extension of the range. 



The house finch has not only expanded the boundaries of its range 

 in some degree, but to a much greater extent the coming of civili- 

 zation has enabled it to occupy new habitats and to increase the den- 

 sity of its population within its original range. In reporting on a 

 visit to the Faralione Islands near San Francisco, Milton S. Ray 

 (1904) tells of discovering house finches, "several pairs of which, 

 for the first time, were nesting here and challenging the Rock Wren's 

 long-defended title of being the island's only song bird. Were it 

 not for the grove of friendly evergreens, where these birds would have 

 nested is a puzzle." In his comprehensive account of the species in 

 Colorado, Dr. W. II. Bergtold (1913) says: "Previous to the advent 

 of the English Sparrow in Denver (about 1894, according to the 

 writer's notes) the only bird at all common about the buildings of 

 Denver was this finch. Before the present extensive settlement of 

 Colorado, the House Finch was, so far as one can gather from the 

 reports of the various early exploring expeditions, to be found mainly 

 along the tree covered 'bottoms' of the larger streams, along the foot 

 hills, to a small extent up the streams into the foot hills, and possibly 

 along the streams as they neared the east line of the state." He 

 estimated the population of house finches in Denver at the time of 

 writing to be at least four for each of the 35,000 houses or other 

 buildings, and possibly much higher. 



That the adaptation of the species to civihzed environments was 

 not, however, an instantaneous process is indicated by a statement 

 of Charles E. H. Aiken (Aiken and Warren, 1914): "I found none 

 nesting in those early days in Caiion City, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, 

 or Denver, but at Trinidad, in July, 1872, I first saw them utilizing 

 human habitations. It was many years before the northern birds 

 took up with the advance of civilization and made their homes in 

 towns. When I returned to Colorado, in December, 1895, after 

 some years absence, I found them frequenting the city." 



According to the fifth edition of the A.O.U. Check-List (1957), the 

 other subspecies of Carpodacus mexicanus are mostly confined to 

 Mexico, with the exception of dementis, an inhabitant of islands off 



646-737— 68— pt. 1 21 



