CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 425 
518. Cassin’s Purple Finch. 
Carpodacus cassint BAIRD. 1854. 
Western State:, from the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains 
to the Pacific Coast, and north to British Columbia. (Azdgway.) 
A few examples, probably of this species, were found breeding 
in the interior of British Columbia. (A/oads.) Both sides of 
Coast Range, B.C. ~(/annin.) Summer resident at Soda Creek, 
and probably also at Quesnel, B.C., 1901. (Svooks.) Taken at 
Spence’s Bridge and Kamloops in June 1889. One specimen seen 
at Trail, near the International Boundary, B.C., in May, I902. 
Quite common at Penticton, B.C., in April, 1903, feeding in the 
tops of bull pine (Pinus ponderosa), on their seeds. (Spreadborough.) 
MUSEUM SPECIMENS. 
Fourteen taken at Penticton, B.C., by Spreadborough, 1903. 
CLXXXVII. PASSER Brisson. 
House Sparrow. 
Passer domesticus (LINN®uS) Kocu. 18106. 
This species has become naturalized in all Canadian cities, towns 
and small villages and in many farm-yards, where it lives in 
winter in affluence on the oats found in the droppings of horses. 
It is quite abundant in the autumn, but whether it finds a scarcity 
of food or abundance it is always in evidence in spring, and where 
it once gets a foothold it retains it and spreads further. It is 
abundant everywhere in the eastern provinces, in the settled 
parts of Quebec and Ontario, and, although spoken against 
everywhere, it destroys an enormous quantity of noxious weeds 
in waste grounds and vacant places in cities and their suburbs, 
by eating their seeds, in September, October and November, 
until the snow comes, when it takes to the streets. In 1894, a 
few pairs were seen near the railway station at Winnipeg, Man., 
since then they have spread rapidly westward. (JM/acoun.) This 
bird is gradually extending its range westward and northwest- 
ward. I found it nesting at Yorkton, northern Assa., in June, 
1go1, and Mr. Hugh Richardson, during the summer of Ig01, sent 
me two sets (of what he called rare eggs) of a bird that had never 
been seen before in the Qu’Appelle valley, Assa., a bird unknown 
