36 HOUSE FINCH. 



birds have won the friendship of man. They are exceedingly tame, building like the 

 European Sparrow in nesting boxes put up for them, in outbuildings, in bushes, and in 

 every nook and comer. As soon as the morning begins to dawn, they commence to 

 sing their sweet and melodious strain. Their excellent song, beauty, and familiarity 

 combine to make them great favorites of Califomian rural life. 



Prof. Robert Ridgway, who has had the opportunity of observing this bird in 

 California as well as in Nevada and Utah, gives the following account of its life-history: 



"The 'Red-head Linnet' was the most familiar and one of the most abundant of 

 the birds found at Sacramento, where it frequented the shade trees of the streets or the 

 door yards and gardens in the city in preference to groves in the suburbs or couhtry. 

 In its abundance and semi-domestic habits it thus reminds one somewhat of the Euro- 

 pean House Sparrow, but, unlike that bird, endeared itself to its protectors by the 

 possession of a sweet song and brilliant plumage. It is greatly prized as a cage bird, 

 and justly, too, for while its plumage is equally pretty, its notes excel those of the 

 Canary in sweetness, w^hile at the same time they are fully equal in vivacity and power. 

 All the notes are decidedly Canary-like, the usual utterance being a soft musical tweet. 

 The song itself differs from that of the Canary chiefly in being more tender, less piercing, 

 and interspersed with more varied w^arblings. The males were observed to be shyer 

 than the females, the wariness being perhaps explained by the fa(5t that several were 

 noticed which had their tails clipped, showing that they had once been in captivity. 

 When their nests were disturbed, however, the males exhibited as much concern as the 

 females, and kept up a lively chinking from an adjoining tree. 



"Few birds are more variable as to the choice of a location for their nests than 

 the present species, since it adapts itself readily to any sort of a place where safety is 

 assured. At Sacramento they usually build among the small oak trees, generally near 

 the extremity of a horizontal branch, but one nest was placed inside the pendulous, 

 basket-Hke structure of a Hanging-bird {Icterus bullocki); in the narrow gorge of the 

 Truckee River, where that stream breaks through the Virginia Mountains, one was 

 found inside the abandoned nest of a Cliff Swallow ; along the eastern shore of Pyramid 

 Lake numerous nests were found among the rocks, placed on shelves in the interior of 

 caves, along with those of the Bam Swallow and Say's Pewee, or in the crevices on 

 the outside of the tufa-domes, while in the neighboring valley of the Truckee, where 

 there was an abundance of cotton-wood timber, their nests were nearly all built in the 

 low grease-wood bushes. On Antelope Island, in the great Salt Lake, they preferred 

 the sage brush, like the Black-throated and Brewer's Sparrows ; in City Creek Canon, 

 near Salt Lake City, one was found in a mountain mahogany tree, while in Parley's 

 Park another was in a cotton-wood tree along a stream. At all the towns and larger 

 settlements, however, a large proportion of the individuals of this species have aban- 

 doned such nesting places, as those described above, and resorted to the buildings, where 

 'odd nooks and crannies' afforded superior attractions. 



"Although chiefly a bird of the lower valleys, this species was sometimes found in 

 the lower canons of the mountains, it being common in Buena Vista CafLon, in. the West 

 Humboldt Range, in September, having apparently nested in the ruined adobe houses of 

 the deserted town. In City Creek Canon, near Salt Lake City, several nests were found 



