GROSBEAKS, FINCHES, SPARROWS: Family Fringillidae [537] 



always occasions comment when a flock invades a district from which 

 they have been absent for several years. 



We have no records of eggs being taken in Oregon, but there is no 

 question that the birds breed throughout the higher ranges, as they are 

 present all summer long in goodly numbers. At Lick Creek Ranger Sta- 

 tion on the Wallowa National Forest, Jewett shot a female, July 16, 19x6, 

 that contained one well-developed egg and two smaller ones. On July 

 2.5 in the same year, on the west base of Mount McLoughlin on the Rogue 

 River National Forest, Gabrielson saw a pair coaxing a single youngster 

 to fly. 



California Purple Finch: 



Carpodacus purpureus californicus Baird 



DESCRIPTION. "Adult male: Upper parts dark dull madder pink, wine purple on 

 head and paler, more pinkish on rump; back streaked; under parts lighter rose pink 

 and fading to unstreaked white on middle of belly and under tail coverts; sides and flanks 

 usually strongly washed with brownish and broadly streaked with darker; tail 

 much shorter than wing, deeply emarginate. Adult female: upper parts olivaceous, 

 heavily streaked with brown; under parts whitish, narrowly streaked; side of head 

 with white stripe crossing brown of ear coverts and side of throat. Young: similar 

 to female, but colors duller and markings less distinct, edgings of wing feathers 

 more buffy or tawny. Male: length (skins) 5.10-6.10, wing 3.03-3.10, tail 1.2.8- 

 1.43, bill .42.-. 49. Female: length (skins) 5.10-5.84, wing 1.95-3.10, tail 1.10- 

 1.33, bill .41-. 49." (Bailey) Nest: A thin, flat platform of roots and grass, placed 

 on a horizontal limb. Eggs: i to 4, greenish or bluish, finely speckled with black 

 and brown on the large end. 



DISTRIBUTION. General: Breeds from southern British Columbia south to Lower 

 California west of Cascades and Sierra Nevadas. In Oregon: Permanent resident 

 west of Cascades, less common to eastern edge of timber on Cascades. 



THE CALIFORNIA PURPLE FINCH is one of the most common and universally 

 distributed finches in western Oregon, where it is a permanent resident. 

 It is largely associated in the minds of most ornithologists with the 

 coniferous timber, where it spends a great deal of time. During the mid- 

 summer, as well as in the coldest part of the winter, flocks are to be found 

 silently hopping about in the willows and alders of the stream bottoms. 

 The dull-red males are comparatively scarce, there usually being three 

 or four females and streaked young to every full-plumaged male. These 

 finches share fondness for salt with the crossbills, siskins, and grosbeaks, 

 mixed companies of which often feed about the salt troughs. 



Although abundant in western Oregon, the California Purple Finch is 

 not found regularly east of the Cascades. Gabrielson took a number of 

 specimens at Friend, Wasco County, in June 1919, along the eastern edge 

 of the timber on the Cascades, and Henshaw (1880) reported a single 

 October bird from The Dalles (the first record). Merrill (1888) took a 

 specimen at Fort Klamath on March i. Miller (1904) reported taking 



