92 Californian Garden Birds. [ February, 
ished. They swarm also in the groves and kill vast numbers of 
the yet more destructive caterpillars during the spring months, 
being thus quite as useful as the imported English sparrows. : 
The Arkansas goldfinch (Chrysomitris psaltria), commonly 
called here “ wild canary,” abounds in gardens. A pair built in a 
rose-bush close to the path, and not over three feet from the 
ground, commencing to set on four eggs April 20th and hatching 
in ten days. They only raised one young, which left the nest 
May 16th. Others were fledged when this hatched, and still other 
pairs were just laying, in nests usually from six to twenty feet up 
in fruit-trees, one however in a pine. The eggs here are pale 
greenish or almost white, and 0.45 by 0.60 inch. The Lawrence’s 
goldfinch ( Chrysomitris Lawrencii), not yet distinguished by 
any popular name, is also abundant in oak groves, and has varied 
its habits so far as to begin to frequent gardens where coniferous 
trees grow, building in pines and cypresses, as the nearest ap- 
proach in density of shade to the favorite live-oaks, though I have 
never seen these birds at Monterey, where the former trees are 
native. Dr. Brewer was evidently led into error by Dr. Can- 
field’s identification of their eggs from Monterey, as given in 
North American Birds, i. 479, where he -says they are “ ex- 
actly similar to those of C. psaltria,” ete. Those I got near San 
Diego in 1862 were, as described in the Ornithology of Califor- 
nia, i. 171, « pure white, measuring 0.46 by 0.60 inch” (mis- 
printed 0.80), and many found here are merely a little larger, 
0.48 by 0.65 inch. A pair of chipping sparrows (Spizella soci- 
alis) built in a cypress about eight feet above the ground, and 
others have nests about the garden. They arrived March 31st, 
described in the Ornithology of California. The brown finch 
(Pipilo fuscus var. crissalis), though often called “ cañon finch,” 
isnot more common in secluded valleys than in gardens where 
tamest of native species, coming to the door for food and building 
as near the house as it can find a location. Like other resident 
birds #& shows much variation in time of nesting, as it laid the 
first egg here as early as April 1st, in a pine-tree, twenty-five feet 
from the ground, and I Suspect some were even fledged by that 
time, as was said to have occurred in a neighboring garden. 
