246 BIRDS OF ILLINOIS. 



"Sp. CHAR. Male in spring. Top of head, abroad stripe each side the throat from 

 lower mandible, and a broad crescent on jugiilum, black; side of head including lores 

 and band above the eye, throat, and tinder parts, ashy white; ear-coverts bordered above 

 and behind by blackish, running out at the maxillary stripe. Breast just behind the 

 black crescent and sides, showing dark bases of feathers. Upper parts ashy, tinged with 

 yellowish on the mandible, and streaked with dusky; least so on nape and rump. Lesser 

 wing-coverts ashy; median, chestnut-brown, with blackish bases sometimes evident; 

 the quills all bordered broadly externally with whitish, becoming more ashy on second- 

 aries. Tail-feathers white except at the concealed bases and the ends, which have a 

 transverse (not, oblique) tip of blackish; the outermost white to the end; the two central 

 like the back. Bill dark plumbeous; legs blackish. In winter, the markings more or 

 less obscured; the bill and legs more yellowish. 



"Female lacks the black markings, which, however, are indicated obsoletely as in 

 other Plectrophanes: there is no trace of chestnut on the wings, nor the streaks on the 

 breast. Length, 5.50; wing, 3.60; tail. 2.50; bill, .46. 



"This species varies considerably in markings, but is readily rec- 

 ognized among other Plectrophanes in all stages by short hind toe, 

 very stout bill, and the transverse dark bar at the end of all tail- 

 feathers except the inner and outer. (Hist. N. Am. B.) 



McCown's Longspur is one of several very peculiar birds which 

 together characterize the avi-fauna of the Great Plains of North 

 America, its more prominent associates in this distinction being the 

 Lark Bunting (Calamospiza melanocorys), Chestnut-collared Longspur 

 (Cakarius ornatm], Baird's Bunting (Centronyx bairdii), Clay-colored 

 Sparrow (Spizella pallida), Leconte's Sparrow (Coturniculus lecontei), 

 and Harris's Sparrow (Zonotrichia querula). These, together with the 

 subject of the present article, and a few species not named, char- 

 acterize a Canipestrian Province, which, so far as its aviaii fauna is 

 concerned, is even more distinct from the Middle Province than is 

 the Pacific Province.* 



McCown's Longspur is an abundant species during summer on the 

 great plains of Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, to the northward 

 and southward of which its breeding range extends for an undeter- 

 mined distance. In winter it migrates south to the prairies and 

 plains of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as to the table- 

 lands of Mexico. In Illinois it is, so far as known, merely a strag- 

 gler during its migrations, or in winter, three specimens having been 

 taken in January, 1877, at Champaign, Champaign county, as an, 

 nounced by Mr. H. K. Coale in the "Nuttall Bulletin" for April, 

 1877, p. 52. 



*Writers on the zoo-geographical divisions of North America have almost all divided 

 the continent into three "Provinces;" viz., an Eastern, a Middle, and a Pacific. These 

 divisions seem to me untenable, however, and I would allow only two primary longitudi- 

 nal divisions; an Eastern and a Western, the latter with three subdivisions, which may 

 be termed, respectively, the Pacific, the Bocky Mountain (or Middle), and the Canipes- 

 trian districts. 



