i8 THE CONDOR Vol. IX 



NESTING OF THE PINE SISKIN IN CALIFORNIA 



BY H. W. CARRIGRR AND J. R. PUMBKRTON 



DITRING the months of April, May and June, of 1903 and 1904, the writers 

 examined in San Mateo and San Francisco Counties some twenty-five sets of 

 the eggs of the pine siskin (Spiniis pinus pim/s). Owing to the loss of Car- 

 riger's collection and notes in the San Francisco fire the number of sets taken is 

 not exactly known, but approximately ten sets were taken. To the writers' know- 

 ledge these are the only authentic eggs of this bird ever taken in California and a 

 short description of their taking may not be uninteresting to Condor readers. 



The taking of a male siskin wnth testes fully developed on April 5, in Marin 

 County, and the seeing of several pairs of birds in San Mateo County a few days 

 later, led to the suspicion that the birds were nesting in the vicinity 



TYPICAL XKST OV PINK SISKIX IX CYPRESS 



of San Francisco. Diligent searching for the birds had its result, and on April 12, 

 1903, a small settlement of siskins was discovered in San Mateo County about a 

 mile from San Francisco Bay. During the following two months every opportu- 

 nity was taken to study this interesting bird. On April 12, 1903, two partially 

 built nests were found by watching the birds carrying dry grass from the fields to 

 the nests. On April 23, 1903, our first set of eggs was taken from nest number 

 two. The nest was twelve feet from the ground, on the top of a long c^'press limb 

 which hung directly over a well-traveled road. There were four eggs in this 

 set, and one would have thought them worth four hundred dollars from the care 

 we took in packing them. 



Of over forty nests found of the pine siskin, only one was not built in a 

 cypress tree, and this one was in the very top of a fifty-foot eucalyptus. The nests 

 were built in full-grown cypress trees planted in rows along roads or as division- 

 lines between fields. 



Nests were usually about twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, but notes show 

 records of several forty feet up, and one fift}' feet from the ground. The site 



