CARPODACUS FRONTALIS. 459 



abundant of the birds found at Sacramento, wliere it frequented the shade- 

 trees of tlie streets or the door-yards and gardens in the city in preference to 

 groves in the suburbs or country. In its abundance and semi-domestic hab- 

 its it thus reminds one somewhat of the European House Sparrow {Fyrglta 

 domestica), but, unhke that bird, lias endeared itself to its protectors by 

 the possession of a sweet song and brilliant plumage. It is greatly prized 

 as a cage-bird, and justly, too, for while its plumage is equally pretty, its 

 notes excel those of the Canary in sweetness, while at the same time they 

 an^ fully 0(iual in vivacity and power. All the notes arc decidedly Canar}'- 

 like, the u^;ual utterance being a soft, nuisical twni. The song itself differs 

 from that of the Canary chiefly in being more tender, less piercing, and 

 interspersed with more varied warlilings. The males were observed to Ije 

 shyer than the females, their wariness being })erhaps explained l)y the fact 

 that several were noticed which had their tails clipped, showing that they 

 had once Ijecn in captivity. When their nests were disturbed, however, 

 the males exhibited as much concern as the females, and kept up a lively 

 chinUng from an adjoining tree. 



Few birds are more variable as to the choice of a location for their 

 nests than the present species, since it adapts itself readily to any sort of a 

 place where safety is assured. At Sacramento, they usually built among the 

 small oak trees, generally near the extremity of a horizontal branch, but 

 one nest was placed inside the pendulous, basket-like structure of a "Hang- 

 ing-bird" {Icterus hidlocld); in the narrow gorge of the Truckee Eiver, 

 where that stream breaks through the Virginia Mountains, one was found 

 inside the abandoned nest of a Cliff Swallow; along the eastern shore of 

 Pyramid Lake numerous nests were found among the rocks, placed on 

 shelves in the interior of caves, along with tliose of the Barn Swallo\v and 

 Say's Pewee, or in crevices on the outside of the tufa-domes, while in the 

 neighboring valley of the Truckee, where there was an abundance of cotton- 

 wood timber, their nests were nearly all built in the low grease-wood bushes. 

 On Antelope Island, in the Great Salt Lake, they preferred the sage-brush, 

 like the Black-throated and Brewer's Sparrows; in City Creek Cailon, near 

 Salt Lake City, one was found in a mountain-mahogany tree, while in 

 Parley's Park another was in a cotton-wood tree along a stream. At all the 



