548 Colorado College Publication 



foothills, and at the bluffs. It is doubtless more or less common 

 in the pines on the Divide, and has been noted at Eastonville 

 early in March. We have no records of its occurrence in the 

 mountains in this region in summer, though it should breed 

 among them as it does elsewhere in the State. Our winter 

 residents are doubtless migrants from more northern localities. 



Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis. House Finch. 

 Resident ; common about towns. 



House Finches are town rather than country birds with us, 

 apparently preferring the neighborhood of human habitations, 

 and are about the only birds we have which seem able to hold 

 their own against the imported House or English Sparrow. 

 While resident the year through, it seems possible there may be 

 a slight migration, a portion going south in winter, for they 

 do not seem as abundant at that season as in summer, though 

 that is partly accounted for by the fact that the birds do leave 

 the neighborhood of houses and go out among the fields search- 

 ing for food. However that may be, they return in good sea- 

 son, and in early March the brightly clad males may be heard 

 singing sweetly and courting their mates. They build their 

 nests about houses and other buildings, as well as in trees. 



In 1903 a pair built their nest on the cap of a column on 

 the porch at my home, beginning to build April 20. There 

 was one egg in the nest the .evening of April 27 ; 3 eggs 

 on the afternoon of May 1 ; 4 eggs May 4, but I have no notes 

 of the intervening days. The three days preceding May first 

 the female spent a good deal of time on the nest as the weather 

 was cold. The morning of May 12 there were 3 young in 

 the nest and one egg; about six o'clock in the afternoon I saw 

 the female eat most of an eggshell; possibly the last egg had 

 just hatched. From May 12 to 28 I photographed these 

 young birds daily, sometimes one, sometimes all four. May 

 26 the largest escaped from me and flew across the street, 

 alighting in a tree, where its mother afterwards fed it ; all the 

 remaining young left the nest May 29. (E. R. W.) 



