THE CONDOR VOL. IX

NESTING OF THE PINE SISKIN IN CALIFORNIA 

BY H. W. CARRIGER AND J. R. I'IMBERTON URING the months of April, May and June, of 1903 and 1904. the writers examined in San Mateo and San Francisco Counties some twenty-five sets of the eggs of the pine siskin (Sinus pinus pinus). Owing to the loss of Car- riger's coll<tion and notes in the n Francisco fire the number of sets taken is not exactly known, but approxinmtely ten sets were taken. To the writers' know- ledge these are the only authentic eggs of this binl ever taken in California and a sho description of their taking may not be uninterting to CONDOR readers. The taking of a male siskin with test fully developed on April 5, in Marin County. and the seeing of several pairs of birds in San Mateo County a few days later, led to the suspicion that the birds were nesting in the vicinity TYPICAI, NEST OF PINE SISKIN IN CYPRESS of n Francisco. Diligent searching for the birds had its result, and on April 12, 1903, a small settlement of siskins was discovered in San Mateo County about a mile from n Francio Bay. During the following two months every opportu- nity was taken to study this interesting bird, On Apr{1 12, 1903, two partially built nests were found by watching the birds carrying dry gras from the fields to the nests. On April 23, 1903, our first t of eggs was taken from nest number two. The nest was twelve ft from the ground, on the top of a long cyprus limb which hung dirtly over a well-traveled road. There were four eggs in this set, and one would have thought them worth four ]mndred dollars from the care we tk in packing them. Of over forty nts fonnd of the pine siskin, only one was not built in a cypress tree, and this one was in the very top of a fifty-foot eucalyptus. The nts were built in full-grown cypress trs planted in rows along roads or as division- lines betwn fields. Nests were usually about twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, but notes show

rords of several forty feet up, and one fifty feet frdm the ound. The site