LAWRENCE'S GOLDFINCH 487 



the seeds it eats and the water it requires may be far from the trees 

 where it nests, this species is the most striking of the goldfinches in 

 California, although not the most plentiful. Noteworthy character- 

 istics include the sharp limitation of its range, the irregularity of its 

 occurrence, its affinity for hot and dry situations, the prominence of 

 seeds of native plants in its food, its dependence on water, the perma- 

 nence of the flocks, the long period through which the birds remain 

 paired, and the peculiarities in its nesting that appear to be related 

 to these traits. 



From Sonoma County along the coast and from Trinity and Shasta 

 counties inland, this bird nests southward into Lower California. In 

 winter some of the birds move southeastward across Arizona as far 

 as New Mexico. In summer, especially northward, the species is 

 not common, and its numbers in one place tend to vary considerably 

 from year to year. 



Ralph Hoffmann (1927) writes that "birds are as a rule so regular in 

 their habits that a student can find year after year a pair of birds 

 which may have traveled a thousand miles or more to and from their 

 winter home and yet returned to the same spot to breed. It is in- 

 teresting, therefore, and puzzling to find a few birds like the Lawrence 

 Goldfinch which are more gypsylike. A vaUey in southern California 

 may be filled with the black-chinned gray-bodied birds one summer 

 and the next year contain not one. * * * It is a bird of the foothills or 

 mountain vaUeys, particularly from Los Angeles County southward." 



Lawrence's goldfinches occur in summer in Lower California, 

 nesting as far south as Laguna Hanson, on the Sierra Juarez (Huey, 

 1928). The same observer found the species at La Grufia, San Pedro 

 Martu-. On Feb. 25, 1925, he saw about 100 bu-ds near lat. 30°30', 

 the southernmost locality for the species. The birds are sometimes 

 abundant in w^inter on the lower Colorado River. Glenn Bradt 

 (MS.) found a nest in Arizona at Cienega Springs, near Parker, about 

 Mar. 15, 1952. The young left the nest on or about April 17. 



Van Rossem (1911) found this goldfinch nearly as common as 

 green-backed goldfinches in late March near Mecca at the north end 

 of the Salton Sea, but they were not yet in pairs and specimens 

 showed no signs of sexual activity. Lawrence's goldfinches have 

 been reported on Catalina Island in May and on Santa Cruz Island 

 in April in different years (HoweU, 1917). 



Observations on the Hastings Reservation in Monterey County, 

 Calif., indicate that the kind and amount of seeds produced each 

 year are important in determining the number of goldfinches present 

 and the length of their stay. They seem to eat the native plants 

 more than the plants introduced to the area. The changes in vegeta- 

 tion, especially the reduction in some of the weedy species with a 



