220 THE BIRDS 
These little birds are residents of our higher mountain 
region only, the Canadian zone of Giles, Craig and Gray- 
son counties being ideal nesting grounds for them. Dur- 
ing the winter months, if the weather be severe elsewhere, 
small flocks are occasionally seen in Tidewater Virginia, 
and Professor Smyth reports migratory birds in the 
vicinity of Blacksburg, December 26th to May 4th. They 
breed in the .\lleghenies in Giles, Grayson, and Washing- 
ton counties, and have been taken also in the mountains 
of North Carolina. It was, though, while in California 
that I became better acquainted with these birds than in 
my own State. They were breeding in small companies 
in the cypress trees near San Francisco, placing their nests 
near the extremity of a limb, far out from the trunk, and 
from twenty to forty feet up. The nests were made of 
fine grass and weeds, lined with hair, somewhat similar 
to those of the Chipping Sparrow, but not so closely 
woven. The eggs number four, the ground a pale 
greenish, finely specked with blackish-brown sparingly 
distributed over the entire shell, though more numerous 
toward the larger end. Size, .65x.48. Their food con- 
sists mostly of seeds taken from the coniferous trees they 
usually inhabit, though often seeds from weeds and 
grasses near the ground are taken. They rear but a single 
brood each season, flocking and migrating early, as do 
the goldfinches, for which they are often mistaken. Fresh 
eges May 27th to June 10th. 
