402 ORNITnOLOGY. 



rare at all places along our route. Its great abundance at Sacramento may 

 jjossibly be explained by the extensive and luxuriant growth of thistles 

 which occupied many waste-places in the suburbs, the seeds of these plants 

 supplying- them, in season, with a plentiful supply of food. 



List of -specimens. 



5, G, 7, uests and eggs; Sacrameuto City, California, June C, 1SC7. Nests in au 

 oakgrove, resting on horizontal branches of the small trees. 



54, nest and eggs; Sacramento City, California, June 18, 18G7. Nest on hori- 

 zontal branch of small cotton-wood, in copse. 



81, nest and eggs ; Sacramento, June 24, 1SG7. 



87, nest and eggs ; Sacramento, June 28, 1SG7. 



93, nest and eggs; Sacramento, June 20, 1SG7. Nest in small cotton-wood, in 

 copse. 



778, S ad.; Truckee Eeservation, Nevada, May 31, 18GS. 5/^— 9^— (?)— 2i. Bill, 

 orange-yellow, the point darker; iris, very dark sepia; tarsi and toes, dilute reddish- 

 sepia. 



1309, nest and eggs (3); Pack's Canon, Uintah Mountains, Utah, July 4, 1SG9. 

 Nest in thorn-apple shrub, by stream. 



CnRYSOMITEIS rSALTIMA. 

 Oi-ceii-backod OoldfiDicli ; "Arkansas Goldfinch." ' 



Fringilla psaltria, Say, Long's Exped., 11, 1823, 40. 



Chrysomitris psaltria, Bonap., Comp. and Geog. List, 1838, 33.— Baird, B. N. 

 Am., 18.jS, 422; Catal., 1859, No. 314.— Cooper, Orn. Cal., I, 1G8.— CouES, 

 Key, 1872, 132; Check List, 1873, No. 151.— Henshaw, 1873, 244. 



Chrysomitris psallria var. psaltria, Ridgway, Am. Jour. Arts and Sci., Dec, 

 1872, 454.— B. B. & E., Hist. N. Am. B., IF, 1874, 474, pi. XXii, figs. 9, 10. 



Chrysomitris jmdtria. a. psaltria, CoUES, B. N.W., 1874, IIG. 



This species we found only among the Wahsatch and Uintah Mount- 

 ains, where it was not common, and usually found associated in small 

 numbers with the large flocks of C. pinus. Attention was first called to it 

 by its extraordinary note, a plaintive, mellow whistle, difficult to describe, 

 l)ut totally unlike that of any other l)ird we havo heard. When the bird 

 takes flight this note is changed to a simi)le fifing cheer, in a fine, high key, 

 and somewhat resembling the anxious note uttered by the male Red- 

 winged Black-bird {Agelccus phceniccus) when its nest is disturbed. 



' Geographically inappropriate. 



