Sept:, 1920 THE PINK-SIDED JUNCO 167 
waste oats. At other times they take refuge in lodgepole pines under bunches 
of foliage covered by a canopy of snow, behind the snow caught on an over- 
turned root, under firs, and even under sage bushes if nothing better offers. A 
little later a snow storm may drive them down from the mountains to the bare 
eround at lower levels. The middle of May finds these true mountaineers at 
9000 feet altitude, and they are at timber line, 9500 feet, a month later. The 
first arrivals appear suddenly in March, and they gradually increase in num- 
ber until June 1. A month later and until August 15, the number is increased 
again by the addition of young birds. Departure begins in September, with 
the bulk of the birds leaving between the 5th and the 30th. They are then in 
small flocks of four to eight birds; these small gatherings coalesce into flocks 
of sixty-five or more individuals in openings in the lodgepole forests where 
food is plentiful. Toward the end of September, those hardier birds that have 
still lingered move down to lower elevations about Tower Falls and Mammoth, 
and even into the sage-brush areas, although never far from the lowest firs 
and pines; and they may remain until the middle of October, or even Novem- 
ber, before being driven out finally. 
in the spring they pick up grain and weed seed on bare slopes, and come 
about barns with the Cassin Purple Finches for dropped oats, although they 
are more liable to do the latter in the fall. Once I noted a small group flitting 
about the top of a fir heavy with cones, but I thought they were catching in- 
sects rather than working on the cones. At one point near Mammoth there is 
a shallow stream of water trickling down from a hot spring above. Here the 
Juncos come to the little basins that catch this cooled water, to drink and 
bathe with Song Sparrows, Western Wood Pewees, and Rocky Mountain Nut- 
hatches. 
The Pink-sided Juncos begin pairing off early in May and by the 25th all 
are provided with partners. During this season, and also all through the sum- 
mer, the male manages to show off his white tail feathers more, I believe, than 
at other seasons. Once I found a pair hopping about the roots of a half fallen, 
dead lodgepole pine on the bank of Cache Creek, as if looking for a nesting 
site, but I never had the chance to go back again to find out. On June 23 I 
found a nest, built of grasses and lined with finer material, placed seven feet 
from the ground on the back wall of a shallow formation cave at Mammoth, 
6300 feet elevation. It held four buffy eggs blotched with brown. The mother 
was killed in a nearby gas vent soon after. On July 16, I found a nest beside 
the Grebe Lake trail, at 8000 feet altitude. It was under a little bunch of 
blueberries in the lodgepole forest, made of pine needles and vegetable stems, 
and contained four greenish eggs slightly speckled with brown. On the same 
day another nest was found on the edge of a rill of water just above Grebe 
Lake, at 8000 feet elevation. This was similar to the last described in every 
way except that this second nest was out in the open, under a tall cluster of 
lupines. On July 27 I found a nest under a tuft of partly dried grass on a low, 
dry. meadow at 7700 feet altitude. It was well made of fine grasses and con- 
tained three greenish-white eggs marked with small brown Spots, especially 
numerous at the larger end. The mother seemed timid and slow to return to 
her nest. The next morning I heard the male singing nearby. 
On August 3, near Mariposa Lake at 8500 feet altitude, a female fluttered 
away, with pretended broken wing, from her nest in a hole in the eround 
under a bunch of lupines, about sixty feet from the nearest tree or shrub. The 
