Hab. Coast of California; Fort Whipple, Arizona (Coues, P. A. N. S. 1866, 83).
Habits. This species, now known to be so common throughout the greater portion of California, was first described by Mr. Cassin in 1850. Dr. Heermann afterwards found them very abundant throughout the northern mining regions of California, frequenting the hillsides covered with brush, the seeds and buds of which they eat with great avidity. Later in the season he found them at San Diego, in quest of grass-seeds on the level plains. They were in large flocks, and so closely packed that he shot thirteen at one discharge. Their nests, he states, are built in the fork of a bush or stunted oak, and are composed of fine grasses, lined with hair and feathers. They contain four or five pure white eggs.
Mr. Ridgway only met with this Goldfinch near the foot of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.
Dr. Cooper met with a few of this species at Fort Mohave, on the Colorado, but found them more numerous near the coast as far north as San Francisco, at least, and also in the more northern mining regions. He has seen them about San Francisco in December, and has no doubt that they remain all the winter throughout the lower country. They seem to avoid the mountainous regions, and have not been met with in Oregon.
Their habits and their song are, in general respects, similar to those of the Goldfinch (C. tristis), but their voice is much weaker, and is higher in its pitch. Their nests, Dr. Cooper thinks, are placed, in preference, on the live-oaks; at least, he has never met with them in any other situation. They are built very much in the style of those of the Goldfinch, but are much smaller, the cavity measuring only an inch in depth and one and a half in breadth. The eggs he describes as four or five in number, pure white, and measuring .80 by .46 of an inch. He adds that they sometimes feed on the ground, on grass-seeds, as well as on buds and seeds of various weeds and trees. They were regarded by him as more of a sylvan species than the Goldfinch, and not so fond of willows and other trees growing along streams and in wet places. In the Colorado Valley they feed on the seeds of the artemisia. He did not notice any there after the middle of April. Eggs, in my own cabinet, from Monterey, identified by Dr. Canfield, are of a uniform greenish-white, exactly similar to those of C. psaltria and tristis, and measure only .58 by .45 of an inch, or less in length by .22 than as given by Dr. Cooper.
Three nests of this species obtained at Monterey, Cal., by Dr. Canfield, all exhibit more or less variations as to material and style of make. They are all more or less felted, and beautifully wrought, fully equal in artistic skill to the nests of the Goldfinch. They are about one and a half inches in height and three in diameter, and the cavity is an inch in depth and one and three quarters in diameter. The walls of these nests are soft, warm, and thick, composed of wool, both vegetable and animal, fine stems of grasses, down, feathers, and other materials, all closely matted together, and lined with the long hair of the larger animals. One of these nests is made up entirely of the finer grasses, strongly matted together.
PINE GOLDFINCH.
Fringilla pinus, Wilson, Am. Orn. II, 1810, 133, pl. xvii, f. 1.—Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 455; V, 509, pl. clxxx. Fringilla (Carduelis) pinus, Bon. Obs. Wils. 1825, No. 103. Linaria pinus, Aud. Synopsis, 1839, 115.—Ib. Birds Am. III, 1841, 125, pl. clxxx. Chrysomitris pinus, Bonap. Consp. 1850, 515.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 425.—Cooper & Suckley, 197.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 172.—Samuels, 290. ?? Chrysomitris macroptera, Dubus, Esq. Orn. tab. 23 (Mexico).—Bp. Conspectus, 1850, 515.
