THE CASSIN PURPLE FINCH. 93 
called his attention to this year’s nest in process of construction, by going 
over and helping herself to a beakful of material, which she pulled out of the 
structure by main force. She evened things up, however, (for the bird-man) 
by immediately visiting her own nest, pitched on the upper side of a horizontal 
branch near the end. 
This female Cassin was a wearisome bird, for she sat and twittered 
inanely, or coaxed, every minute her husband was in the tree. He, poor soul, 
was visibly annoyed at her indolence, not to say her wantonness, and had 
as little to do with her as possible. However, he was a young fellow, without 
a bit of red on him, and he should not have 
been over-critical of his first mate in honey- 
moon. 
On the pine-clad slopes of Cannon 
Hill in Spokane, there is no more 
familiar sound in June than 
the wanton note of the female 
Cassin Finch, oreé-eh, oreé-eh, 
delivered as often as not 
with quivering wings, and 
unmistakably inviting the 
attentions of the male. 
Perhaps it is fair to call 
this a love note, but it is 
delivered with the simper- 
ing insistence of a spoiled 
child. 
The sight of a singing 
male in high plumage is 
memorable. He _ selects 
a position at the tip of a 
pine branch, or perhaps 
on a bunch of cones at 
the very top of the tree, and throws himself into the work. His 
color, crimson, not purple, is pure and clear upon the crown only; 
elsewhere, upon nape, shoulders, and breast, it presents merely a suffu- 
sion of red. A song heard near Chelan was much like that of a 
California Purple Finch in character, but less musical and more chatter- 
ing, with the exception of one strong note thrown in near the close. 
This note was very like the characteristic squeal of the Evening Grosbeak, 
gimp, or thkimp, out of all keeping with the remainder—unquestionably 
borrowed. 
Taken in Spokane. Photo by the Author. 
CASSIN’S FINCH. 
The Cassin Finch is quite as successful as a mimic as his cousin from 
