262 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



150. Spinus pinus (Wils.). 

 Pine Siskin. Pine Linnet. Pine Finch. 



Irregular winter visitor, sometimes very abundant. One instance of breeding. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



September 19, 1870, "numbers seen," Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. 



October 15 — May 10. 

 June 8, 1875, several heard, Waverley, W. Brewster. 



The Pine Linnet is usually classed among our ' irregular winter visitors,' 

 and not improperly, for it does not occur numerously or conspicuously much 

 oftener than do the Redpolls and Pine Grosbeaks. Nevertheless at least a few 

 straggling Linnets may be found in the Cambridge Region nearly every 

 autumn. The heaviest flights invariably take place at that season, occasionally 

 beginning late in September, but usually not before the middle or last of 

 October. The birds are sometimes present in enormous numbers during 

 November and the first part of December, but most of them disappear 

 before the close of the latter month, no doubt going further southward to spend 

 the winter ; a few, however, often remain with us through January and Feb- 

 ruary and they are sometimes common during these months. The return flight 

 begins in March and continues through April or even well into May. I have 

 never known Pine Siskins to linger here later than the 8th of June (1875), but 

 Dr. Allen has reported ^ that in 1 869 " they were quite common in Cambridge 

 till the last of June, and on two or three occasions " he " observed them during 

 the first half of July." It is possible that some of the birds which he saw were 

 breeding, for Dr. Brewer states^ that "early in May, 1859, a pair" of Pine 

 Finches " built their nest in the garden of Professor Benjamin Peirce, in Cam- 

 bridge, Mass., near the colleges. It was found on the 9th by Mr. Frederick 

 Ware, and already contained its full complement of four eggs, partly incubated." 

 One of these eggs — faded, dust-stained and partly broken — is still preserved 

 in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. On writing to the late Professor J. M. 

 Peirce, son of Professor Benjamin Peirce, respecting this nest, my assistant, 

 Mr. Walter Deane, received the following reply, dated January 31, 1904: — 



'J. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 582. 



' Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, I, 1874, 482. 



