FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC.: HOUSE FINCH 
689 
In the spring it was taken at Camp Burgwyn, March 14, 1859 (Anderson); 
at Gallinas Springs, April 3, 1895 (Herrick); at Rinconada, 5,600 feet on April 
16, 1904 (Surber); and it was noted at Fort Bayard, April 7, 1908 (Rockhill).— 
W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —On a horizontal branch, near the top of a young conifer; made externally 
of twigs and weed stems, and internally of rootlets and grasses, lined with shreds 
of bark and sometimes sheep’s wool. Eggs: 2 to 5, greenish blue marked chiefly 
around the larger end, sometimes finely spotted and lined with brown and black, 
at others spotted and blotched with pale lavender and a few bold punctuations 
of bistre. 
General Habits. —The Cassin Purple Finch is a larger, woodland 
relative of the more familiar House Finch, and its bright, rich song is 
heard with pleasure in the forested mountains. One was heard by 
Doctor Wet more near Lake Burford singing in the top of a tall pine on a 
high hill. The young males, in the dull plumage of the first winter, 
Mr. Ridgway and Dr. W. P. Taylor both have found, “sing almost if 
not quite so vigorously and sweetly as those in the adult livery.” Doctor 
Taylor has seen them giving their impassioned flight song (1912, p. 
387). 
In the San Bernardino Mountains in California, Doctor Grinnell 
has found small companies of males—“ bachelor parties”—going about 
together all through June and July, and he raises the question as to 
whether more males than females had come to maturity (1908, p. 89). 
An instance of the destruction of nests by hailstorms has been re¬ 
ported by Mr. F. S. Hanford. A mother Cassin Finch, he writes, 
“continued to feed her young in a nest high up in a hemlock during a 
few hours of rain; at the first cracking downpour of the hail, the nestlings 
were silenced and the parent was seen no more” (1913, p. 137). 
During the month of October, 1904, when Mr. Gaut found the 
Cassins quite numerous in the Manzano Mountains, they stayed most 
of the time in the spruce timber, usually in company with Crossbills. 
During the middle of the day flocks could always be seen around the 
springs on the slopes of the mountains. Seeds of the yellow pine were 
found in the crop of one secured (MS). In the Yellowstone the Finches 
have been found eating rock salt spread on the ground for deer. In 
November, 1874, Mr. Henshaw saw large flocks at the salt lakes south 
of Zuni, the cedar-clad hills attracting them and perhaps detaining 
them through the winter, the salt, doubtless, adding zest to their diet 
(1875, pp. 240-241). 
HOUSE FINCH: Carpodacus mexic&nus frontalis (Say) 
Plate 76 
Description. — Male: Length (skins) 4.8- 1 6.1 inches, wing 3-3.3, tail 2.1-2.6, 
bill .4-5. Female: Length (skins) 5-5.6 inches, wing 2.8-3, tail 2-2.4, bill .4. 
Tail not decidedly shorter than wing, nearly even. Adult male: Forehead, line 
