496 ORNITHOLOGY. 



PlPILO CHLOKURUS. 

 Orecn-taUed Bunting:. 



(Pooe-tse' -tse of the Washoes.) 



^^Fringilla chlorura, Townsend," Audubon, Orn. Biog., V, 1839,336. 



Pijiilo chlorurus, Baird, Birds N. Am., 1858, 519; Cat. N. Am. Birds, 1859, No. 

 398.— Cooper, Orn. Cal., I, 248.— CouES, Key, 1872, 153; Check List, 1873, 

 No. 208; Birds N.W., 1874, 176.— B. B. & R., Hist. N. Am. Birds, II, 1874, 

 131, pi. XXXI, fig. 4.— Henshaw, 1875, 307. 



This very interesting species was met with on all the higher ranges, 

 from the Sierra Nevada to the Uintahs, particularly in the elevated parks 

 and canons, where it was one of the most characteristic birds. We never 

 observed it at a lower altitude than the beginning of the canons, or, as 

 happened rarely, in ravines of the foot-hills, while, in the river-valleys, it 

 appeared to be entirely wanting. It is apparently migratory, as none were 

 observed between the months of September and April, and in its passage 

 to and from the south appears to follow the mountain ranges without 

 perfoi-ming sufficient vertical migration to reach the lower valleys. In 

 the canons of the lofty Toyabe Mountains, near Austin, this species was 

 exceedingly abundant in the early part of July; it was also very common 

 in the higher canons and elevated garden-like slopes of the Ruby range, 

 while in similar places near the station of Evanston, on the high Uintahs, 

 numbers were heard singing on every hand during our brief stay there, in 

 the month of May. Like its congeners, this species is a bird of the chap- 

 arral, living chiefly in the bi'ushwood of the canons and ravines; but it is 

 also found among the rank herbage of those flowery slopes so characteristic 

 of the higher portions of that mountainous region. 



In the position of its nest there was a rather unusual uniformity of 

 habit manifested, especially by the birds of one locality; thus, those found 

 at Austin were all placed in the thickest part of low bushes of the 

 Sifmphoricarpus montanus, at a height of eighteen inches to two feet above 

 the ground; the same was usually the case in Parley's Park, although 

 sometimes other shrubs, as wild-currant bushes, were selected. The 

 maximum number of eggs found in a nest was four. 



