490 ORNITHOLOGY. 



sippi Valley which include it, while on the Atlantic coast it is more or less 

 common, locally, north to New Jersey, having even been taken in the 

 eastern portion of Maine! Its distribution seems, therefore, not to be gov- 

 erned strictly by climatic conditions, but the facts adduced rather seem to 

 indicate a somewhat littoral range for the species. 



At Sacramento this species was found in the same localities with 

 Cyanospiza aincena, it being as characteristic of the edges of the copses of 

 young cotton- woods as was Hedymeles melanocephalus of the willow thickets. 

 List of sjyccimens. 



18, 19, nests and eggs (3); Sacramento, California, June 11, 1867. 



20, 9 ad. (parent of No. 18); Sacramento, California, June 11, 1867. 7— lOf— 

 3^ — 2i| — § — li — 2| — IJ. Upper mandible, dafk bluish horn-color, lower light, some- 

 what lihiceous, ashy- white; iris, hazel; tarsi and toes, horn-color. 



44, $ ad.; Sacramento, June 17, 1867. 7J— llj— 3§— 3^1— §— 3— li. Upper 

 mandible blackish-slate, lower light plunibeous-blue; iris, hazel; tarsi and toes, plum- 

 beous-brown. 



51, nest and eggs (3); Sacramento, California, June IS, 1867. 



82, nest and eggs (3); Sacramento, California, June 24, 1867. 



91, nest and eggs (3); Sacramento, California, June 29, 1867. 



Nests all similarlj' situated, being placed about six feet from ground, in small 

 cotton-woods, in edge of copse. 



Cyanospiza AMGBNA. 



l.aziili Bunting. 



Emheriza amoena, Say, Long's Exped., II, 1823, 47. 



Cyanospiza amoena, Baird, B. N. Am., 1858, 504 ; Cat. N. Am. B., 1859, No. 386.— 

 Cooper, Orn. Cal., 1, 1870, 233.— CouES, Key, 1872,149; Check List, 1873, 

 No. 198; B. N.W., 1874, 170.— B. B. & R., Hist. N. Am. B., II, 1874, 84, pi. 

 XXX, figs. 11, 12.— Henshaw, 1875, 300. 



This ])retty little Bunting was a very common species in all the fertile 

 valleys, as well as ia the lower canons of the mountains, its range being 

 co-extensive with that of Hedymeles melanocephahs. Like its eastern con- 

 gener, C. cyanea, of which it is a perfect counterpart in habits, manners, and 

 notes, it frequents bushy places only ; but it avoids the sage-brush tracts, 

 and resorts to the more thrifty shrubbery in the vicinity of the streams. 

 List of specimens. 



9, nest and egg(l); Sacramento, California, June 8, 1867. Nest on extremity of 

 drooping branch of small oak, in grove, about four feet from ground. 



