YELLOW OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 525 



could gain few facts that are sufficiently definite to be 

 recorded. I know that the female was on the nest and 

 the male always somewhere in the vicinity every time 

 I looked during a watch of fifteen days. After that, 

 both flew back and forth with food, but I was entirely 

 unable to tell what the menu might be, except in one 

 case, where the male alighted a moment near me with 

 a caterpillar (not the hairy kind) in his beak, and then 

 flew straight to the nest. 



On the fifteenth day after I first observed the parents 

 carrying food, the nest-tree was deserted and not a 

 glimpse could I catch of young or old'. This was at a 

 height of seven thousand feet in the Sierra Nevada, and 

 I fancied^ they had gone to the lower altitudes to feed 

 upon the buds of the deciduous trees and in the fruit 

 ranches of the foot-hills. With the solitude of the 

 forests the Grosbeak leaves his quaint, sweet song. 

 Henceforth, until spring calls him back to the breeding 

 grounds, he will utter only the single whistled note, and 

 no one who hears shall guess that he can sing. 



529 b. WILLOW GOLDFINCH. — Astragalinus tristis 

 salicamans. 



Family : The Finches, Sparrows, etc. 



Length: 4.08-4.82. 



Adult Male : General body plumage yellow, in sharp contrast to black 

 forehead, crown, lores, wings, and tail ; wings with faint white edg- 

 ings ; tail-feathers with white patches. 



Adult Female : Upper jiarts dark olive-brown, sometimes tinged with 

 olive greenish ; wings and tail dull blackish brown, with markings 

 similar to male ; throat dull greenish yellow, remainder of under parts 

 dull grayish, more or less tinged with yellow. 



