S "'i'n;i XX ] BBROTOLD, A Study of the House, Finch. 45 



time during the summer of 1908, at least, fourteen pairs of Finches 

 were known to be nesting in the block in which the writer lived; 

 thus there were twenty-eight Pinches living in this block at that 

 time. It is possible that the unusual nesting facilities at the 

 writer's house may have increased the Finches in the block beyond 

 normal numbers, yet a careful survey of many blocks in other parts 

 of the city justified the writer in feeling that the number of Finches 

 in his block was what one might call "average common." This 

 would give US another estimate, counting only the built up blocks, 

 to wit, 98,000 for the entire city. The writer has actually counted 

 in April more than one hundred Finches congregated on the tele- 

 phone wires leading to one building, near his oflicc, a structure 

 ornamented with many ledges, lintels, arches, etc., and lending 

 itself well for night lodging places for the House Finch. This date 

 is well on in the early incubation period of the year, and one feels 

 justified in assuming that these birds were not young of the year, 

 or old birds gathered together from a wide area to roost only, but 

 were most likely males going to rest near their nesting locations. 

 This is, furthermore, made more probable by the fact that all of 

 these birds seemed in full spring song, characteristic, practically, 

 of the male only. There could not have been less than 200 birds 

 about this building at the time mentioned, and there were almost 

 as many more on the building on the opposite side of the street, 

 showing that these birds are extraordinarily abundant about the 

 business parts of the city, an abundance which can well compensate 

 for any possible scarcity in the outskirts, though it is readily evident 

 that in the outskirts too, the Finches are quite numerous. If we 

 estimate 200 Finches to each 'built on' block, we would have a 

 Finch population of 700,000, a number to be considered as a maxi- 

 mum, and probably a considerable overestimate, though the 

 writer is by no means convinced that it is actually an overestimate. 

 Averaging the Finch population in another way, one can say that 

 there are four Finches for each of the 35,000 houses (or other build- 

 ings) in Denver, resulting in a total of 140,000 House Finches in the 

 city. 



No portion of the territory within the corporation limits is with- 

 out its Finches, and after studying the question with care for year-;, 

 and considering every way of making an estimate, the writer feels 



