Page:Condor14(4).djvu/36

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146 THE CONDOR Vol. XIV find of iml)ortance was a uest of the White-crowned Sparrow, with four eggs advanced in incubation. It was placed .28 inches up in a lodge-pole pine sap- ling, and made of weed. s.tems and lined xvixh fine grasses and horsehair. The most important find on the meadow was a nest of the Cassin Purple Finch (Carpadacus casehal) ?vitlI three eggs in a state of advanced incubatiou. The nest was placed on ahnost the top branch of a pine, about thirty feet up. on the edge of the meadow. It xvas of particular interest as nests of cassini are not often located or easy to reach. and the birds being also quick to desert and the nesting season a, long one make it difficult to obtain a proper set of eggs. Although I have spent a number of summers at Lake Tahoe cc?sini, oologically, is still unrepresented in my cabinet, and when Carriger called from the tree-top that the nest held three well-incubated eggs I felt that another Tahoean oological mile post had been passed. Carriger also examined two nests of the Audubon Fig. 61. COLD CREEI? MEA1)O?VS IN LATE JUNE; ELEVATION 7500 IPEEI'; FREEL'S PEAK AND JOB'S SISTER IN BACKGI?OUND Warbler (Dendroica auduboni auduboni), each with four fresh eggs, and two of the Sierra Junco. each with five fresh. hi a lodge-pole pine twenty feet up, placed on the end of the bough, 1 found another nest of the Cassin Purple Finch with four fully-fledged young. Xot to mention nmnerous nests of the Western Robin and Western Chipping Sparrow, the only other of note I found was one 6f the Audubon Warbler with four fresh eggs. On June 6 I noted two very early nests for this elevation of the' House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis) placed in lodge-pole pines twelve and fifteen feet up, both with five fresh eggs. Later in the day I found four eggs, incubation advanced, of the White-crowned Sparrow, and four eggs, fresh, of the Sierra Hermit Thrush. A nest of the Western Chipping Sparrow (Spi?ella socialis arir. onac) was collected with a set of four eggs one of which was an in- fertile runt measuring only .55x.43; the others were normal averaging .71x.53.