Part 9

Description.—_Adult male_: Tips of mandibles crossed either way; plumage red, brightest on rump; feathers of back with brownish centers; wings and tail fuscous. Shade of red very variable,—orange, cinnabar, even vermilion, sometimes toned down by a saffron suffusion. _Immature males_ sometimes present a curiously mottled appearance with chrome-green and red intermingled. _Female and young_: Dull olive-green, brighter and more yellow on head and rump; below gray overcast by dingy yellow. Adult male, length 5.50-6.25 (139.7-158.8); wings 3.40 (86.4); tail 2.05 (52.1); bill .70 (17.8) or under.

Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; crossed mandibles; male red and female olive-green; both _without_ white wing-bars.

“Nest: in forks or among twigs of tree, founded on a mass of twigs and bark-strips, the inside felted of finer materials, including small twigs, rootlets, grasses, hair, feathers, etc. _Eggs_: 3-4, 0.75 × 0.57, pale greenish, spotted and dotted about larger end with dark purplish brown, with lavender shell-markings” (Coues). Av. size, .85 × .53 (21.6 × 13.5) (Brewer). _Season_: erratic, Feb.-Oct.; one brood.

General Range.—Northern North America, resident sparingly south in the eastern United States to Maryland and Tennessee, and in the Alleghanies, irregularly abundant in winter. Of irregular distribution thruout the coniferous forests of the West, save in southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico, where replaced by _L. c. stricklandi_.

Range in Washington.—Found thruout the coniferous forests of the State; of irregular occurrence locally. Non-migratory but nomadic.

Authorities.—_Curvirostra americana_ Wils. Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. pt. II. 1858, 426 part, 427. T. C&S. L¹. D¹. Ra. D². J. B. E.

Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. E. B.

When a bird’s pastures are the tree-tops it is possible for it to live a quite secluded life here in Washington. And, indeed, we know the Crossbill chiefly as a wandering voice or, rather, a vocal babel, passing from summit to summit in the grim fir forest. But on a rare day, it may be in Spokane, or it may be in Tacoma, the birds descend to human levels and are discovered feeding busily on their favorite pine cones. The birds are perfectly indifferent to equilibrium, and feed any side up without care. While thus engaged they may exhibit little fear of the beholder and sometimes venture within reach; but as often, for some whimsical reason they are up and away again as tho seized by evil spirits.

The Crossbill owes its peculiar mandibles to an age-long hankering for pine-seeds (using that word in the generic sense), a desire fully satisfied according to the fashion of that Providence which works so variously thru Nature, and whose method we are pleased to call evolution. The bill of the bird was not meant for an organ of prehension, and Buffon, the Deist, once won a cheap applause by railing at the Almighty for a supposed oversight in this direction; but as matter of fact, its wonderful crossed mandibles enable the Crossbill to do what no other bird can; viz., pry and cut open the scales of a fir cone, in order to extract the tiny seed with its tongue.

These birds are not entirely confined to a vegetable diet, for I once detected a group of them feeding industriously in a small elm tree which was infested with little gray insects, plant-lice or something of the sort. The presence of these insects, in colonies, caused the edges of the leaves to shrivel and curl tightly backward into a protective roll. Close attention showed that the Crossbills were feeding exclusively upon these aphides. They first slit open a leaf-roll with their scissor-bills, then extracted the insects with their tongues, taking care apparently to secure most of the members of each colony before passing to the next.

Crossbills also feed to some extent upon the ground, where they pick up fallen seeds and other tidbits. Mr. J. F. Galbraith, a ranger of the Washington Forest Reserve, first called my attention to another purpose which the birds have in visiting the ground. He had noticed how at certain places, and notably where dish-water was habitually thrown, the Crossbills were wont to congregate, and, turning the head sidewise, to thrust out the tongue along the bare ground in a most puzzling manner. Suspecting at last the real state of affairs, he sprinkled the ground with salt, and upon their return the birds licked it up with great avidity. Mr. Galbraith claims to have tried this experiment successfully upon numerous occasions. The birds do not appear to recognize the salt at first sight, but soon learn to resort to established salt-licks in open places. Rev. Fred M. McCreary also reports similar habits in connection with certain mineral springs in the Suiattle country. When we recall that the normal food of the Crossbill is pine-seeds, this craving for Nature’s solvent is readily understandable.

Crossbills give out an intermittent rattling cry, or excited titter, _tew, tew, tew_, while feeding. They have also a flight note which consists of a short, clear whistle; and a flock composed of separately undulating individuals affords a pleasing sensation to both eye and ear, as it rapidly passes. The male is said to have sprightly whistling notes of a most agreeable character, generically related to that of the Pine Grosbeak, or Purple Finch, but their exhibition must be rather rare.

After all, there is something a bit uncanny about these cross-billed creatures, and their eccentricities show nowhere in greater relief than in their nesting habits. The quasi migrations of the bird are determined by the local abundance of fir (or pine) cones. Like their food supply, the birds themselves may abound in a given section one year and be conspicuously absent the next. Moreover, because there is no choice of season in gathering the seed crop, the birds may nest whenever the whim seizes them; and this they do from January to July, or even October. The communal life is maintained in spite of the occasional defection of love-lorn couples; and there is nothing in the appearance of a flock of Crossbills in April to suggest that other such are dutifully nesting.

Mr. Bowles has never taken the eggs near Tacoma, altho he has encountered half a dozen of their nests in twelve years, the only occupied one of which we have record being found by a friend on the 25th of April, 1899. It contained three half-incubated eggs, and was placed in one of a group of small firs in the prairie country, at an elevation of some twenty feet. The nest rather closely resembles that of the California Purple Finch, but is more compactly built and much more heavily lined. It is composed of twigs and rootlets closely interwoven, and boasts an inner quilt of felted cow-hair nearly half an inch in thickness. The female Crossbill exhibits a singular devotion to duty, once confessed, and in this case the collector had actually to lift her from the eggs in order that he might examine them.

No. 26. WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL.

A. O. U. No. 522. Loxia leucoptera Gmel.

Description.—_Male_: Rosy-red or carmine all over, save for grayish of nape and black of scapulars, wings, and tail. The black of scapulars sometimes meets on lower back. Two conspicuous white wing-bars are formed by the tips of the middle and greater coverts. Bill slender and weaker than in preceding species. _Female and young_: Light olive-yellow, ochraceous, or even pale orange over gray, clearer on rump, duller on throat and belly; most of the feathers with dusky centers, finer on crown and throat, broader on back and breast; wings and tail as in male, but fuscous rather than black; feather-edgings olivaceous. Very variable. Length 6.00-6.50 (152.4-165.1); wing 3.50 (88.9); tail 2.25 (57.2); bill .67 (17).

Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; crossed bill; conspicuous white wing-bars of both sexes.

Nesting.—_Nest_ has not yet been taken in Washington but bird undoubtedly breeds here. “_Nest_: of twigs and strips of birch-bark, covered exteriorly with moss (_Usnea_) and lined with soft moss and hair, on the fork of an evergreen, in deep forests. _Eggs_: 3(?), pale blue, spotted and streaked near larger end with reddish brown and lilac, .80 × .55 (20.3 × 1.4.)” (Chamberlain). _Season_: Feb.-March.

General Range.—Northern parts of North America and southern Greenland, south into the United States in winter. Resident in coniferous timber thru the entire northern tier of states and irregularly south in the mountains at least to Colorado. Casual in western Europe.

Range in Washington.—Several records of occurrences in northern Cascade Mountains. Doubtless regular and resident.

Authorities.—Dawson, Auk, Vol. XVII. Oct., 1901, p. 403. D².

Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. C. B.

To tell the truth, no one hereabouts appears to know much about the White-winged Crossbill. It is presumed to be common in the Cascade Mountains, but I have only thrice encountered it: once, May 15, 1891, in the mountains of Yakima County; again, July 23, 1900, on the slopes of Wright’s Peak near the head of Lake Chelan; and lastly, on the summit of Cascade Pass, June 25, 1906. There are no other records.[12] This species is quite as erratic as its more common cousin; and while it is, perhaps, more nearly confined to the mountains, it should be looked for wherever _C. minor_ occurs, and especially in flocks of the latter species.

Of the bird’s occurrence in Alaska, where it is much more abundant, Nelson says[13]: “It is more familiar than the Grosbeak [i. e., _Pinicola enucleator alascensis_], frequently coming low down among the smaller growth, and it is a common sight to see parties of them swinging about in every conceivable position from the twigs on the tops of the cottonwoods or birch trees, where the birds are busily engaged in feeding upon the buds. They pay no heed to a passing party of sleds, except, perhaps, that an individual will fly down to some convenient bush, where he curiously examines the strange procession, and, his curiosity satisfied or confidence restored, back he goes to his companions and continues feeding. When fired at they utter chirps of alarm and call to each other with a long, sweet note, something similar to that of the Goldfinch (_Spinus tristis_). They keep up a constant _cheeping_ repetition of this note when feeding in parties, and if one of their number is shot the others approach closer and closer to the hunter, and gaze with mingled curiosity and sympathy upon their fluttering companion.”

No. 27. GRAY-CROWNED LEUCOSTICTE.

A. O. U. No. 524. Leucosticte tephrocotis Swains.

Synonyms.—Rosy Finch. Swainson’s Rosy Finch.

Description.—_Adults_: Similar to _L. t. littoralis_ but ashy gray of head restricted to sides of crown and occiput—in worn plumages black of crown produced backward to meet brown of hind neck. Seasonal changes as in succeeding. Size of next.

Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; warm brown plumage; ashy gray _not_ encroaching upon sides of head as distinguished from _L. t. littoralis_.

Nesting.—Not known to breed in Washington. “_Nest_ made of strips of bark and grass, built in a fissure of a rock at the side of a bunch of grass” (Reed). _Eggs_: 4 or 5, white. _Season_: June; one brood.

General Range.—Imperfectly made out—probably discontinuous. Reported breeding from such widely separated localities as the Rocky Mountains of British America and the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains of southern California; winters on the eastern slopes of the Rockies and irregularly eastward to western Nebraska, Manitoba, etc., westward to Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges (Camp Harvey, Ore. Pullman, Wash. Chilliwhack, B. C.).

Range in Washington.—Probably of regular occurrence during migrations and in winter east of the Cascade Mountains only.

Authorities.—_Not previously reported_; W. T. Shaw _in epistola_, Dec. 31, 1908.

Specimens.—Pullman.

Mountain climbing as an art is still in its infancy in the Northwest and altho the Mountaineers and the Mazamas are attacking the situation vigorously we have yet much to learn of the wild life upon our Washington sierras. But what problem could be more fascinating to a lover of birds and mountains than that of working out accurately the distribution of the Rosy Finches in America? They are the mountaineers _par excellence_, they are the Jebusites of the untaken citadels, and our ignorance of their ways will ere long become a reproach to our vaunted western enterprise. As it stands, however, only scanty crumbs of information have come to us concerning this most interesting and widely distributed race of Highlanders.

The Gray-crowned Leucosticte is considered the central figure of the genus, shading[14], as it does, into _L. atrata_ of the Bitterroots and _L. australis_ of Colorado, into _L. t. littoralis_ of southern British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, and (perhaps _thru littoralis_) into _griseonucha_ of the Aleutians. This assumes for the species a center of distribution in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan where the bird is known to occur. And so because of the greater severity of the winters in its normal haunts this form is found to be the greatest wanderer of its group, being frequently driven in the fall far out upon the central eastern plains or down the “inside passage” between the Rockies and Sierras.

It was in this fashion, probably, that a colony of this species became established in the southern Sierras of California, where it now maintains a vigorous existence separated, as we suppose, by at least a thousand miles from the parent stock in British Columbia.

No. 28. HEPBURN’S LEUCOSTICTE.

A. O. U. No. 524a. Leucosticte tephrocotis littoralis (Baird).

Synonyms.—Rosy Finch. Hepburn’s Rosy Finch. Baird’s Rosy Finch.

Description.—_Adult male in summer_: Forehead and fore-crown black; occiput, broadly, and sides of head, clear ashy gray, color sometimes encroaching on chin and throat; nasal plumules grayish white; remaining plumage in general chestnut, chocolate, or rich vandyke brown, sharply contrasting with ashy gray on hind-neck and sides of head, inclining to blackish on throat, streaked with dusky on back and with more or less admixture of dusky on feather tips, especially on wings and flanks; feathers of upper and under tail-coverts, rump and flanks broadly and distinctly tipped with pink (of variable shade); wings and tail blackish; lesser and middle coverts broadly tipped with pink, the greater coverts, primary coverts and part of the flight feathers edged with pink or light carmine; rectrices with more or less edging of pinkish gray or light brown; bill black; feet and legs black. _Adult female_: of somewhat paler and duller coloration. _Adults in winter_: Feathers of back and scapulars edged with light brown; pink edgings of wings, etc., paler, and body plumage, especially on breast, with more or less pale skirting; bill yellow with dusky tip (this character is assumed as early as September). Length of adult male: 6.15 (156.2); wing 4.00 (101.6); tail 2.60 (66); bill .45 (11.4); tarsus .75 (19).

Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; plumage warm brown with rosy skirtings; ashy gray on _sides_ of head as distinguished from _L. tephrocotis_.

Nesting.—_Nest_: a thick mat of dried grasses placed in sheltered crevice of rock at great altitude. _Eggs_: Not yet taken but doubtless like those of _Leucosticte griseonucha_, viz., 4 or 5, pure white; av. size .97 × .67 (24.6 × 17). _Season_: June; one brood.

General Range.—Summer haunts include the higher mountain ranges of southeastern Alaska, British Columbia (west of the Rockies?) and Washington (possibly Oregon as well); “in winter south to Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, and east to eastern base of Rocky Mountains (casually to Minnesota), and along the Pacific coast to Kodiak, Sitka, Vancouver Island, etc.” (Ridgway).

Range in Washington.—Breeds thruout the higher Cascades (Wright’s Peak, Sahale, Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, etc.) and, probably, the Olympics. Retreats in winter to the lowlands, chiefly east of the Cascade Mountains.

Authorities.—? J. K. Lord, Nat. in V. Id. & B. C. 1866, p. 154. [“Hopburn’s (sic) rosy finch,” Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (1885), 22.] Dawson, Auk, XIV. 1897, 92, 177. J. E.

Specimens.—P. Prov. E. C.

Lives there a man so brutish that his heart does not kindle when he sees Rainier lit up with the ruddy glow of the evening sacrifice? If such there be, he is no bird-lover. Lives there a woman who can gaze upon the virgin snows of Kulshan, Shuksan, or Sahale, and not adore the emblem of eternal purity thereon displayed? If so, she will not appreciate the Leucosticte. This bird is the vestal virgin of the snows, the attendant minister of Nature’s loftiest altars, the guardian of the glacial sanctuaries.

One who loves the mountains cannot measure his praise nor bound his enthusiasm. Their sublimity bids him forget his limitations; and if one happens also to care for birds, it is matter of small justice to laud a bird whose devotion to the peaks appears as boundless as his own, besides knowing neither admixture of caution nor limitation of opportunity. Here is the patron saint of mountaineers! He alone of all creatures is at home on the heights, and he is not even dependent upon the scanty vegetation which follows the retreating snows, since he is able to wrest a living from the very glaciers. Abysses do not appall him, nor do the flower-strewn meadows of the lesser heights alienate his snow-centered affections.

Looking out on the chilly wilderness of snow-clad peaks which confronts Leucosticte on an early day in June, one wonders what the bird sees to justify the assumption of family cares. Save for a few dripping south exposures of inhospitable rock, there is nothing visible which affords promise of food unless it be the snow itself. And when one sees a little company of the finches moving about demurely upon the face of a choppy snowdrift, pecking at the surface here and there, he begins to harbor an uncanny suspicion that the birds do eat snow. Closer examination, however, shows that the surface of all snow-banks, not freshly covered, is sprinkled with insects,—midges, beetles, wasps, and the like—insects which the spring gales have swept up to uncongenial heights and dropped, benumbed or dead with cold. These battered waifs the Leucostictes gather with untiring patience, and they are thus able to subsist as no other species can, up to the very summits.

The eggs of the Hepburn Leucosticte have not to our knowledge yet been taken. Mr. D. E. Brown, then of Glacier, found these birds scooping hollows under grass tussocks on the middle slopes of Baker, above timber line, on the 7th of June, 1905. On the 20th of July, 1900, Professor Lynds Jones and myself found a thick-walled grass nest settled upon bare rock without protection, on the south slope of the aiguille of Wright’s Peak, at an elevation of some 9,000 feet, and within a hundred yards of the summit; this could hardly have belonged to any other species.

In July, 1907, knowing that it was too late for eggs, I yet spent several days searching the precipitous wall which separates the upper Horseshoe Basin from the glacier which heads Thunder Creek. Adult birds to the number of a dozen gleaned scraps from the dump of the Cascade Mine house; but, altho each made off in business-like fashion when “loaded,” the stretch of the wall was too vast and its recesses too mazy to permit of exact work in tracing. I therefore examined carefully but with difficulty several of the weathered fissures, or _couloirs_, which ran perpendicularly up the face of the cliff. Here, under cover of rocks which had lodged in the throat of the fissure, or which had weathered out unevenly, old nests were found, simple affairs of coiled grasses, and too dilapidated for exact measurement. From one of these sites a pebble snapped from the finger must have fallen three hundred feet before striking the glacier below.

Now and then a passing bird, suspicious of my intent, stopped on some projecting point of rock, to utter the sole note which does duty for every mood, _churkk_ or _schthub_, a sound comparable only to the concussion of a small taut rope on a flag-pole. Finally, near the top of the Sahale Glacier, I got a line at two hundred yards on an occupied fissure, and traced both parent Leucostictes into its distant recesses. Climbing cautiously up a sharp slope of ice, my footsteps were guided by the almost incessant clamor of young birds. Arrived at the upper lip of the glacier, however, I found that it stood away from the rock-wall some fifteen feet, and that a chasm some forty feet in depth yawned beneath. Into this forbidding _bergschrund_, one of the fledgling Leucostictes had tumbled. He was not more than two-thirds grown (July 18th) and down feathers still fluttered from his cheeks, but he was a plucky little fellow, and had managed to scramble up off the ice onto a piece of flat rock which caught a bit of the afternoon sun. Here, to judge from his lusty yelping, there could be no doubt that his parents would notice him, altho they would be powerless to secure his further release until his wings were grown. A Carnegie medal hovered suggestively over the spot, I know; but pray, consider,—the rock wall was perpendicular and smooth as glass, the ice-wall I stood on was undercut. No; even philornithy has its limits!

The nest containing the remaining youngsters was set well back in a rock fissure, concealed by projections eighty feet above the fallen first-born, and inaccessible to man from above or below. With the possible exception of the Black Cloud Swifts (_Cypseloides niger borealis_), who are reported to share at times these same cliffs, it is safe to say that the Leucostictes are the highest nesters on the continent.

No. 29. REDPOLL.

A. O. U. No. 528. Acanthis linaria (Linn.).

Synonyms.—Common Redpoll. Lesser Redpoll. Linnet. Lintie.

Description.—_Adult male_: Crown crimson; breast and shoulders crimson in varying proportions according to season; frontlet, lores, and throat-patch sooty black; remaining lower parts white, flanks and crissum streaked with dusky; above, variegated dusky, flaxen-brown and whitish, the feathers having dusky centers and flaxen edgings; rump dusky and white in streaks, tinged with rosy; wings and tail dusky with flaxen or whitish edgings; two inconspicuous wing-bars formed by white tips of middle and greater coverts. _Female_: Similar but without red on rump and breast, the latter suffused with buffy instead; sides heavily streaked with dusky. _Immature_: Like female but without crimson crown. Length 5.50 (139.7) or less; wing 2.80 (71.1); tail 2.30 (58.4); bill .34 (8.6); depth at base .23 (5.8).

Recognition Marks.—Warbler to Sparrow size; crimson crown-patch in adults; no dusky spot on breast.