112 LEUCOSTICTE TEPHEOCOTIS, GRAY-CROWNED FINCH. 



List of specivisn8. 



Later Expeditions. — 60633, Uintah Mountains. 



One of the most interesting results of Dr. Hayden's ornithological 

 researches is the discovery that this highly-prized bird, hitherto consid- 

 ered so rare, is abundant in the Wind Eiver Mountains, where, as shown 

 by the above list, numerous specimens were procured by hinaself and 

 Mr. Trook in the winter of 1859-'60. Originally described from the 

 Saskatchewan, the same specimen afforded the subject of Audubon's 

 plate, and tLe subsequeut United States quotation from Great Salt Lake 

 remained single until the present discovery. Since this, however, the 

 records have multiplied, until the distribution above given has been de- 

 termined. In January, 1862, Dr. C. Wernigk sent the bird from Denver, 

 Colorado, to the Smithsonian ; this specimen became the basis of the 

 untenable L. ^'campestris." In the birds of California, Dr. Cooper states 

 that he saw a specimen brought from somewhere east of Lake Tahoe, in 

 Washoe. "They were said to be plentiful there in the very cold winter 

 of 1861-'62, and doubtless visited the similar country east of the North- 

 Mu Sierra Nevada within this State." It remained, however, for Mr. 

 Allen to show that the bird breeds in the United States. He found it, 

 in summer, "common above the timber-line on Mount Lincoln [Colorado] 

 breeding among the snow-fields." He also mentions other specimens 

 killed at Central City, Colorado, in March, 1869, by Mr. P. B. Everett. 



Mr. Allen's specimens, which he kindly transmitted to me for exam- 

 inatiouj differ materially from any previ9usly-known plumage of L. tepli- 

 rocotis, as he himself says in giving a'careful description of them {op. 

 cit. 162). JTot to duplicate his description, it will be suflicient to state 

 here that the peculiarities lie in the darkness of the general chocolate 

 or liver-brown ; the heightening of the customary rosy to crimson ; the 

 entire absence of silvery-ash on the head, the whole crown being sooty 

 blackish ; and in the black instead of whitish bill. He remarks that, 

 " whether they represent more than the breeding plumage or L. tephro- 

 cotis, or a well-marked southern form of that species, I am at present 

 uncertain, being without summer specimens of that species." I have 

 myself no doubt whatever that they represent the worn midsummer 

 state of the breeding plumage, and nothing more. Everything seems 

 to indicate this ; and if analogy be pertinent in the case, we may in- 

 stance the closely-allied JEgiothus litiaria, which in midsummer often 

 shows a precisely parallel condition. 



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