The Cassin Purple Finch 



face. This operation could undoubtedly have been repeated indefinitely, 

 but alas! my plates were gone. 



Never have I been torn by more conflicting emotions than upon this 

 occasion, and never has the pathetic fallacy of avian domesticity been 

 more thoroughly discredited. 



When I had packed away the eggs and wrapped the nest in brown 

 tissue paper and lowered it to the ground, the male and the female Cassin 

 Finch searched about over the nesting site in utter bewilderment; but so 

 far from sensing their disaster as a personal loss, they put in odd moments 

 copulating, and once I saw the wanton female mount the male and go 

 through the copulatory ecstacy. 



In the face of such a display it is impossible to be swayed longer by 

 anxiety or concern for domestic felicities in the bird. They are simply 

 the agents of overmastering instincts, through which Nature accomplishes 

 her benign purposes and achieves her infinite variety. To interfere at 

 any point with these processes is no more a moral issue than is the wring- 

 ing of a cockerel's neck when the pot waits. 



Taken in Modoc County 



Photo bv the Author 



A NESTING HAUNT IN THE WARNER MOUNTAINS 



20J 



