Page:Condor14(5).djvu/30

184 THE CONDOR Vol. XIV birds were collected. The eggs showed at least eight days incubation and they had lost, as is usual with-most well-incubated eggs, a certain glossiness'of shell and freshness of ground-color. Leaving my companions to continue on to camp I journeyed over the ridges to Grosbeak nest number one. There, while a third egg was collected, the nest was undoubtedly deserted, for the lining was partially torn up, the eggs stone cold and the parent bird nowhere in sight. It being early in the aftern?_on I still had sufficient time to make camp and come back with Heinemann who took several photographs of the nest and eggs in situ. Measurement showed the nest to be sixteen feet above the ground, four feet out from the trunk and twenty-one inches from the tip of the branch. The red fir in which it was placed was on a sloping mountain side where the rather scattered timber rose amid huge boulders, fallen trees and fast melting banks of snow, some of which may - be seen below the nest in the -,, photograph (fig. 73). The nest was s:_mply a ?X: rough platform of twigs, ? ?,? ? ?._ principally fir, and was thick- ly lined with very fine light- ' - colored grasses. So thick is . ?: this grass lining that eggs in the nest were not visible from , ?'"'--'? below. The twig platform . -- .h? .4{7': ? I measures 6x8 inches, the .,? grass nest cavity, 5x4I?xl ? inches deep. With the ex- ception of some eggs of the Raptores, perhaps, there are but few eggs to be found in ? California that are as richly colored. In describing their coloration I have used Ridg- way's Nomenclature of Col- Fig. 77. FEMALE CALIFORNIA PINE GROSBEAK AP- ors, 1886. In Ridgway's PROACHING NEST; PHOTOGRAPHED 35 FEET book. however, the paint on ABOVE THE GROUND the plates has been unevenly applied with the result that the color of nearly every individual plate varies more or less in intensity making an e.ract comparison difficult. The ground color of the eggs approaches closely to Nile Blue (no. 17. Plate ix), but is slightly deeper and more rich in shade. The surface markings are spots and blotches, chiefly around the larger end, and in the form of a rough wreath, of black and of a rich deep brown called Vandyke (no. 5, Plate u?. There are underlying scattered spots of Wood Brown (no. 19, Plate and splashy shell markings of Olive Gray (no. 14, Plate H). The eggs are ovate in shape and measure as they lie in the picture 1.02x.69, 1.02x.67, and .93x.71 (see fig. 78). The second nest was situated 35 feet up, eight feet from the trunk of the hemlock, and two feet from the end of the limb. It closely resembles the type