60 MR. GAMBEL ON THE BIRDS OF CALIFORNIA. 



In company with the P. Townsendii, and other resident species, they frequent the 

 orchards, gardens, hedges, and every brushy place, often enlivening the v^^inter 

 months with their cheerful song. They commence breeding in the latter part of 

 February and beginning of March, and by the beginning of April have full grown 

 young. The nest here is large and coarse, and generally built on a fence rail, 

 sheltered with weeds, or in' some low bush about two feet from the ground, and made 

 of roots, dead stems of weeds, coarse grass, and dead willow leaves, lined inside with 

 fine blades of dried grass. The eggs were of a bluish or greenish ground, very 

 much covered with spots and blotches of reddish brown. I brought but a single 

 specimen, but although it differs in size and in the bill, yet it is insufficient without 

 other specimens to character as different. 



89. Z. GUTTATA, (Nutt.) Gamb. Brown Song Sparrow. 



Fringilla cinerea, Aud. non Gmel. 

 This species is far from being so abundant as the former, and is found almost 

 exclusively, in marshy and moist grassy places, around ponds and the margins of 

 streams. 



90. Z. GRABiiNEA, (Gmel.) Swains. Bay-winged Finch. 



I found this species in the Rocky Mountains of the interior, in September. 



91. Z. GAMBELii, (Nutt.) Gambel's Finch. 



Fringilla Gambelii. Nutt. Man. Orn. vol. 1, p. 556, 2d edition. 



F. leucophrys, auc. in part. 

 The immature plumage of the western White-crowned Finch was described by my 

 friend Nuttall under the above name in his manual of Ornithology, in 1840, without 

 knowing that what he supposed to be the F. leucophrys was the adult. Whether it 

 is indeed different from the leucophrys of this side of the continent is still uncertain. 

 Yet it seems from the specimens I have compared to present a constant difference in 

 size. The young birds, which I found in immense numbers from the Rio Colorado 

 to California, were never more than 6 inches in length ; those which I measured 

 in California were of the same size; an adult male brought from Oregon by Town- 

 send is also only 6J- inches ; and the only adult specimen which I brought from 

 California is scarcely 6 inches in length. Those from this side appear to be always 

 larger ; and a young bird which I have, measures li inches. The measurements of 

 eleven specimens of the leucophrys were transmitted to me by my friend Professor 

 Baird, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and all average over 7 inches in length, one only 

 being 6 -^-^ inches. It thus seems that about an inch difference in length is constantly 

 found between them. I have not observed in the western one the same broad greyish 

 margins to the feathers of the back, and perhaps in comparing more specimens of the 

 adult other differences will be found. They are exceedingly abundant throughout 



