352 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 taut i 



LEUCOSTIGTE TEPHROCOTIS LITTORALIS Baird 



Hepburn's Rosy Finch 



Habits 



This form has been called the gray-headed rosy finch, as its cheelcs, 

 and, in typical specimens, the entire head is gray, except the black 

 frontal patch. 



As its subspecific name implies, it is a bird of the coastal mountain 

 districts of northwestern North America, from the Alaska Peninsula 

 eastward and southward, breeding above timberline. J. Grinnell 

 (1909) reports that one specimen collected of a number of leucosticte 

 seen at Hooniah on Chicagof Island, Alaska, June 21 to 27, 1907, 

 was L. t. littoralis. According to the observer, Dixon, the birds were 

 "around the lower end of the melting snow slides, and the rock slides 

 near the summit of the mountain, 2,500 feet altitude." Alfred M. 

 Bailey (1927) observed these finches at several places in southeastern 

 Alaska, Glacier Bay, Juneau, and other places; they were evidently 

 nesting in the precipitous cliffs at elevations of about 4,000 feet. In 

 the Stikine River region of northern British Columbia and southeastern 

 Alaska, Harry S. Swarth (1922) found them "after we emerged from 

 the upper edge of the forest (about 3500 feet) and they evidently 

 inhabited all of the open country from there on upward." 



Dawson (1909) writes: "This bird is the vestal virgin of the snows, 

 the attendant minister of Nature's loftiest altar, the guardian of the 

 glacial sanctuaries. * * * He alone of all creatures is at home on 

 the heights, and he is not even dependent upon the scanty vege- 

 tation which follows the retreating snows, since he is able to wrest a 

 living from the very glaciers. Abysses do not appall him, nor do the 

 flower-strewn meadows of the lesser heights alienate his snow-centered 

 affections," 



Taylor and Shaw (1927) say of this hardy bird: "Apparently scorn- 

 ing more comfortable surroundings, the rosy finch selects for his home 

 and feeding ground bleak and wind-swept ridges of rock, dizzy crags 

 and precipices. This is one of the hardy quartet of birds (rosy finch, 

 pipit, ptarmigan, horned lark) which is characteristic of the Arctic- 

 Alpine, the highest and coldest life zone on Mount Rainier." 



Nesting. — To William T. Shaw (1936) we are indebted for much 

 that we know of the nesting and other habits of Hepburn's rosy 

 finch, and much of what follows has been taken from his two articles 

 on the winter habits and nesting studies of this finch. His obser- 

 vations were made mainly on Mount Baker and Mount Rainier, 

 Wash., where he found several old nests, as well as nests with eggs 

 and nests with young. Of one nesting site, he says: 



