170 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



Sycamore, Ash, Boxelder, etc., and needing much water is oftener 

 seen drinking than any other sparrow. It is most common and 

 generally distributed as a transient visitant. Those seen before 

 April 20 are mostly individuals which have passed the winter 

 with us and are becoming more conspicuous, assuming slowly 

 their summer dress and beginning to sing. Real migration 

 reaches us with great regularity about April 20 and lasts three 

 weeks to May 10, exceptionally later as in the cold spring of 1907, 

 May 20. During this time Goldfinches are with us in flocks of 

 from 30 to 60, mostly in high dress and very musical, assembling 

 in treetops and concerting like Bobolinks or Blackbirds, all be- 

 ginning or breaking off at the same moment. After the middle 

 of May transients are gone and summer residents are seen in 

 pairs, but it takes them some time to locate and settle down. 

 When the young are grown the family begins to roam and gather 

 into small flocks about the middle of September. October 1 

 migration from the north reaches us and lasts throughout the 

 month, sometimes in big flocks, frequenting the same localities 

 for resting as in spring. Soon after November 1 winter numbers 

 only are left, wandering in search of food over most of the state, 

 but oftenest found in the flood plains of the Mississippi and 

 Missouri Rivers and in the southeast. 



533. Spinus pinus (Wils.). Pine Siskin. 



Fringilla pinus. Cardudis pinus. Chrysomitris pinus. IAnaria pinus. 



Geog. Dist. — North America generally, breeding in the north- 

 ern coniferous forests south to parts of New England, Hudson 

 Valley, on mountains south to North Carolina, to Minnesota, 

 and on the western ranges to the southern boundary of the 

 United States. In winter chiefly in the southern United States, 

 California and into Mexico. 



In Missouri a rather irregular transient visitant, sometimes 

 seen in winter, but most records are about the first of November 

 and in the latter part of April. Latest date May 15, 1897, 

 when Mr. Currier saw a flock of ten near Keokuk. They gener- 

 ally move in small flocks by themselves and associate on the 

 feeding grounds with Goldfinches, Purple Finches, Myrtle 

 Warblers, etc. Small troops of them have been reported from 

 St. Joseph by Mr. S. S. Wilson, April 4 and 7, 1896, and from 

 Fayette by Prof. Kilpatrick in January and February 1885. 

 Since the above was written the extraordinary cold spring of 



