58 PACIFIC COAST AVIFAUNA. [No 4 



of the tree trunks and over the larger limbs, examining the crevices ana 

 interstices in the bark in search of food, and occasionally flying out a 

 short distance after some passing insect. A call note is uttered at fre- 

 (|uent intervals, not unlike the peep of a young chicken, and occasionally 

 the short, low song of the male can be heard. Though this is usually 

 given utterance to between intervals of feeding, I have once or twice, 

 usually in the early morning, seen the male bird ascend to the top of a 

 tall tree, and from the tip of some dead limb repeat his song, sometimes 

 for half an hour before descending. Though the nest is usually built near 

 the bottom of the canyon, and generally close to the water, this is not 

 always the case, for I saw one nest that the birds had built in a crevice 

 on the side of an open cut leading into a tunnel on a ridge between two 

 canyons, and nearly a mile from water. The strangest part of it was that 

 two men were working and blasting, daily in the tunnel without the 

 birds seeming disturbed. When the young appear, the first being seen 

 about the end of June, they are dark sooty lolack, rather paler on the 

 abdomen, but they quickly begin to lose this plumage ; most of those 

 secured having a few glossy black feathers showing on the back, and 

 one or two red ones on the lower parts. The juvenile plumage is moulted 

 entirely with the exception of the remiges and rectrices, (even the wing 

 coverts being renewed, though the pattern of coloration is the same in 

 the juvenile as in the adult) ; specimens taken during July and August 

 being variously intermediate in color, and more or less covered with pin 

 feathers. The adults moult at the same time ; one taken on August 20th 

 having entirely completed the change, though others secured later have 

 many pin fathers still scattered over the body. By the first week in Sep- 

 tember, however, the moult is practically completed, and at this time 

 young and old are indistinguishable in color ; only differing from spring 

 specimens in a slightly scaled appearance of the red of the lower parts, 

 due to those feathers being faintly tipped with grayish. 



Cardellina rubrifrons (Giraud). Red-faced Warbler. 



The Red-faced Warbler and Painted Redstart are always associated 

 together in my mind, being both of a tropical appearance in decided 

 contrast with their duller colored associates, and essentially alike in their 

 habits and modes of life. They inhabit rather different areas in the 

 mountains, rubrifrons being found during the breeding season from 7000 

 feet upwards, and in the migrations as abundant in the higher pine re- 

 gions as anywhere. The first arrival was noted April 20th, and up to the 

 middle of May they were seen in considerable numbers along the can- 

 yons, often in company with other migrating warblers. During the 

 breeding season their numbers seem to be greatly decreased, but this is 

 probably more apparent than real, as at this time they are very quiet 

 and inconspicuous; and as soon as the young begin to appear, about the 

 middle of August, are as numerous as ever. The moult takes place in 

 August, and specimens secured immediately after, in fresh autumnal 

 plumage, have the white of the under parts strongly tinged with pink. 

 Early spring specimens have this pinkish tinge, though in a lesser degree, 

 but in breeding birds taken during May and June it is almost entirely 

 absent. After the young leave the nest they spread out more and de- 

 scend to rather a lower altitude, though I have never taken specimens 

 below 5500 feet, and at the same time they can be found in the highest 

 parts of the range. 



A nest containing four eggs, found on May 20, 1903, at an altitude 

 of about 8500 feet, was well concealed under an old rotten log, on a steep 



