184 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XIV 
birds were collected. The eggs showed at least eight days incubation and they 
had lost, as is usual with mo.st well-incubated eggs, a certain glossiness of shell 
and freshness of ground-color. 
Leaving my companions to continue on to camp I journeyed over the ridges 
to Grosbeak nest number one. There, while a third egg was collected, the nest 
was undoubtedly deserted, for the lining was partially torn up, the eggs stone 
cold and the parent bird nowhere in sight. It being early in the afternoon I 
still had sufficient time to make camp and come back with Heinemann who took 
several photographs of the nest and eggs in situ. Measurement showed the 
nest to be sixteen feet above the ground, four feet out from the trunk and 
twenty-one inches from the tip of the branch. The red fir in which it was 
placed was on a sloping mountain side where the rather scattered timber rose 
amid huge boulders, fallen 
trees and fast melting banks 
of snow, some of which may 
be seen below the nest in the 
photograph (fig. 73). 
The nest was simply a 
rough platform of twigs, 
principally fir, and was thick- 
ly lined with very fine light- 
colored grasses. So thick is 
this grass lining that eggs in 
the nest were not visible from 
below. The twig platform 
measures 6x8 inches, the 
grass nest cavity, 5x4^xl^ 
inches deep. With the ex- 
ception of some eggs of the 
Raptores, perhaps, there are 
but few eggs to be found in 
California that are as richly 
colored. In describing their 
coloration I have used Ridg- 
way’s Nomenclature of Col- 
ors, 1886. In Ridgway’s 
book, however, the paint on 
the plates has been unevenly 
applied with the result that the color of nearly every individual plate varies more 
or less in intensity making an exact comparison difficult. 
The ground color of the eggs approaches closely to Nile Blue (no. 17, 
Plate IX ), but is slightly deeper and more rich in shade. The surface markings 
are spots and blotches, chiefly around the larger end, and in the form of a 
rough wreath, of black and of a rich deep brown called Vandyke (no. 5, Plate 
HI. There are underlying scattered spots of Wood Brown (no. 19, Plate ill), 
and splashy shell markings of Olive Gray (no. 14, Plate ii). The eggs are ovate 
in shape and measure as they lie pn the picture 1.02x.69, 1.02x.67, and .98x.71 
(see fig. 78). 
The second nest was situated 35 feet up, eight feet from the trunk of the 
hemlock, and two feet from the end of the limb. It closely resembles the type 
Fig. 77. FEMALE CALIFORNIA PINE GROSBEAK AP- 
PROACHING NEST; PHOTOGRAPHED 35 FEET 
ABOVE THE GROUND 
