YELLOW -OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 595 
could gain few facts that are sufficiently definite to be 
recorded. I know that the female was on the nest and 
the male always somewhere in the vicinity every time 
I looked during a watch of fifteen days. After that, 
both flew back and forth with food, but I was entirely 
unable to tell what the menu might be, except in one 
case, where the male alighted a moment near me with 
a caterpillar (not the hairy kind) in his beak, and then 
flew straight to the nest. 
On the fifteenth day after I first observed the parents 
carrying food, the nest-tree was deserted and not a 
glimpse could [ catch of young or old. This was ata 
height of seven thousand feet in the Sierra Nevada, and 
I fancied they had gone to the lower altitudes to feed 
upon the buds of the deciduous trees and in the fruit 
ranches of the foot-hills. With the solitude of the 
forests the Grosbeak leaves his quaint, sweet song. 
Henceforth, until spring calls him back to the breeding 
grounds, he will utter only the single whistled note, and 
no one who hears shall guess that he can sing. 
529b. WILLOW GOLDFINCH. — Astragalinus tristis 
salicamans. 
Famity: The Finches, Sparrows, ete. 
Length: 4.08-4.82. 
Adult Male: General body plumage yellow, in sharp contrast to black 
forehead, crown, lores, wings, and tail ; wings with faint white edg- 
ings ; tail-feathers with white patches. 
Adult Female: Upper parts dark olive-brown, sometimes tinged with 
olive greenish ; wings and tail dull blackish brown, with markings 
similar to male ; throat dull greenish yellow, remainder of under parts 
dull grayish, more or less tinged with yellow. 
