A BRILLIANT FINCH. 153. 
therein taken refuge. The song is a pretty soft 
warble, that comes in bursts, as if in joyous praise 
of some unusually fortunate capture ; the singer 
perching itself boldly on the top of a plant, to be 
the more plainly heard by itscompanions. In early 
spring the redpoles feed right-royally, the long 
pollen-dusted catkins of the alder and hazel being 
much relished. I never saw its nest, though I 
repeatedly searched for it. They winter in small 
flocks in Vancouver Island, at its southern 
extremity. 
Tue Lazunt Finca (Cyanospiza amena, 
Baird).—This gaily-plumaged little bird, one of 
the ‘ painted sparrows,’ visits Vancouver Island 
and British Columbia early in the summer, 
arriving at the Island in May, and rather later 
east of the Cascades. The colours of the male 
are nearly as brilliant as the gemlike humming- 
birds, the feathers having a similar metallic 
lustre—a brilliancy rendered the more con- 
spicuous by contrast with the flowerless shrubs it 
usually frequents. The song is feeble, and only 
now and then indulged in by the male, to cheer 
his more sombre partner during incubation. 
The nest is round, and open at the top, com- 
posed of various materials turned and worked 
together, lined with hair, and placed in a low 
