The Nesting of Hepburn's Rosy Finch 



By CHARLES STUART MOODY. M. D. 



With a photograph by the author 



I WAS not aware until quite recently that the nesting habits of Hepburn's 

 Rosy Finch {Leucostide tephrocotis littoraUs) were but little known. The bird 

 is so common among the higher sierras of the Northwest that I supposed 

 all the ornithologists were familiar with it and its home-life. Prof. W. L. Dawson, 

 in his most excellent work on the birds of Washington, however, mentions the 

 fact that the eggs have not, to his knowledge, been taken. That being the case, 

 I will endeavor to state some few things about the bird and its nest; it having 

 been my good fortune to locate at least three nests of this Rosy Finch, one of 

 which I succeeded in photographing in situ. 



Hepburn's Leucosticte is an almost constant resident in north Idaho, especi- 

 ally in the higher slopes of the Bitter Root, Coevu* d'Alene, and Cabinet mountains 

 It does not seem to be deterred by the deep snows, and many times I have seen 

 flocks of them feeding with Crossbills about the door-yards of miners' cabins 

 when the snow was many feet deep. Like Crossbills, they are very fond of salt, 

 and will greedily eat anything of a saline character. There is also a small black 

 midge, or gnat, that covers the snow on certain warm days, and these the birds 

 devour. I have also seen them industriously picking about the tops of fir trees 

 and on the branches of w^hite cedars. 



I can not better describe their nesting than by giving the incidents relating to 

 the photograph which accompanies this article. We were fishing one of the swift 

 mountain streams that flow into Lake Tend Oreille in north Idaho, last summer. 

 It is a very rough country through which the stream runs. Immense bluffs of 

 black basalt and granite tower hundreds of feet sheer from the bed of the stream. 

 In the niches grow stunted evergreens and a few deciduous bushes. Several 

 miles from where the stream flows into the lake a mining flume begins. It is 

 cut a part of the way out of the solid rock and winds sinuously along the mountain 

 side. My son and I were picking our way along this flume one day, that being the 

 most direct way back to camp, when we noticed a nest high on a shelf of rock 

 above our heads. It was late (July 5), and I did not think it to be occupied. 

 To make sure, I tossed a small stone up and started a Rosy Finch from her nest. 

 I did not attach much importance to the discovery, but the lad insisted upon 

 scrambling up to investigate. When he informed me, clinging to the side of the 

 cliff, that there were eggs in the nest, I resolved to make a picture of it, more from 

 the fact that it was so late in the season than with any idea of perpetuating a rare 

 nest. During this time the bird sat upon the top of a small fir that grew near the 

 flume, and scolded with an angry chuck, which, as Mr. Dawson has well described 

 it, sounds like the slap of the ratlines on a flag-pole in a high wind. 



The next day I returned with my camera and, after a deal of trouble, suc- 

 ceeded in getting sufficiently near to the nest to make an exposure. This was 



(108) 



