LAWRENCE'S GOLDFINCH 489 



mate constantly and drives off all interlopers. After incubation 

 starts, the strength of the pair bond wanes. The male becomes less 

 aggressive and his attacks on trespassers are relatively mild. But the 

 female still defends her domain quite jSercely, and drives off all other 

 goldfinches and other species as well. 



When a nest-building female leaves the nest on a long trip she 

 utters a fhght call that appears to impel the male to follow her. 

 Before short trips she gives no flight call and the male does not follow. 

 The nest-tree is the male's usual song perch, but he may sing from 

 other nearby perches as well. When a strange male settled in a tree 

 40 feet from the nest-tree, the male owner of the nest chased the 

 intruder away and sang while the female continued to gather material 

 near the nest. After the female started incubating, the male sang 

 from another tree 40 feet away. 



Nesting. — According to Dawson (1923) the nests of Lawrence's 

 goldfinch "are exquisite creations, highly varied in construction and 

 sometimes quite picturesque. A dainty cup before me, an inch and a 

 half in diameter and one in depth, is compacted of wool, flower-heads, 

 fairy grasses, horse-hair, and feathers. Another, of coarser construc- 

 tion, boasts several additional ingredients, but dispenses with horse- 

 hair in favor of sheer feathers for lining. A third displays a garland of 

 protruding and highly nutant grassheads, as chic as a Parisian bonnet. 

 The female, naturally, disputes the intruder's claim to such a piece of 

 handiwork; but she does not often have to be lifted from the nest." 



Dawson (1923) reports that these birds colonize to some extent in 

 isolated clusters or hedges of the Monterey cypress, and he found as 

 many as 10 nests at once in two adjoining trees. He indicates that 

 there is no flock unpulse in the matter, for while some nests were still 

 incompleted, others contained eggs, and still others had young. 

 WiUiam Twisselman has told me of a similar colonial nesting of this 

 goldfinch in a short hedge of cypress that formerly lined a road south 

 of Salinas. 



Wilson C. Hanna (MS.) found the earliest nest on April 1, in 

 Coachella Valley barely above sea level. His latest nestmg date is 

 June 27 in San Bernardino County at over 5,000 feet. His highest 

 altitude for a nest was 6,000 feet in Slover Canyon. He found nests 

 from 3 feet to as high as 40 feet above the ground, with an average of 

 about 15 feet. He usually found Lawrence's goldfinch nesting in 

 sohtary pairs, but in 1943 he found a dozen nests in one small juniper on 

 the Mohave Desert, a few in two other junipers a few feet away, and 

 still others in sage {Artemisia tridentata) nearby. The site was in a 

 stand of Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) at least a half mile from the 

 nearest water. 



