The California Purple Finch 



of C. cassini. The higher residents retire irregularly to the lower slopes and adjacent 

 valleys in winter. Casual in winter on Santa Cruz Island (Linton). 



Authorities. — Gambel (Erythrospiza purpurea), Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 

 ser. 2, vol. ii., 1847, p. 5$;Baird, Rept. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. ix., 1858, p. 413 (desc. of 

 calif ornicus) ; Cooper, W. A., Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, vol. iii., 1878, pp. 8-10 (nesting 

 habits, nest and eggs). 



TRUTH to tell, the people of California really know very little about 

 the "California" Purple Finch. We owe the name (presumably good 

 advertising) to an accident of discovery rather than to the character or 

 prominence of the bird in California. The bird is not prominent at best, 

 even in those regions — our northern sister states — where its presence is 

 not overshadowed, as it is here, by that of the ubiquitous House Finch. 

 The Purple Finch is rather a demure bird, quiet and inoffensive, "of the 

 streaked streaky," and those streakings of a dull olivaceous quality which 

 confers anything but distinction. The male, indeed, is entitled to a court 

 dress of wine purple, but this regalia is not often seen, and we do not know 

 to this day whether it is the badge of immaturity, or a mark of honor 

 conferred upon old age. And even this brilliance may escape attention, 

 for the bird's movements are not advertised by rattles or chirps, as is the 

 case with so many of its cousins. A company of Purple Finches will feed 

 so quietly in a blossoming fruit tree, for example, that no observer would 

 suspect their presence, save for an occasional click of the mandibles. That 

 the Finches do some mischief at such times is undeniable. I have seen 

 them on a March morning, in Washington, feeding in the luxuriant bushes 

 of the red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum). They pluck the flowers 

 assiduously, and either eat the fleshy part at the base, the tender ovary, or 

 else press out the nectar just above, or both. A flower is first plucked off 

 whole and held in the bill, while the bird appears to smack its lips several 

 times; then the crimson corolla is allowed to drop upon the ground, which 

 thus becomes carpeted with rejected beauty. 



Like many related species, the California Finch is rather unwary, so 

 that one may study his behavior at close range. To this fortunate trait 

 we owe knowledge of the Purple Finch's virtues as well as of his pecca- 

 dillos. Once as I was passing along my garden walk in August, several 

 of these Finches were frightened from the gooseberry bushes. "What! 

 eating my gooseberries too?" I frowned horribly. But one bird, pre- 

 sumably a young of the year, almost immediately returned to the very 

 bush against which I was standing, and resumed his avocation, which 

 proved to be that of gleaning caterpillars. At a distance of four feet I saw 

 the bird search each gooseberry limb with the greatest care and devour a 

 naked green worm about half an inch long, which my own eyes could 

 scarcely have detected. Six or eight of these miscreants were devoured 



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