BIRDS OF NEW YORK 283 



beneficial on account of the destruction of weed seeds. Although they 

 were frequently shot for food in the earlier days, they are rarely slaughtered 

 for that purpose now, and should be left to enliven the winter landscape. 



Calcarius lapponicus lapponicus (Linnaeus) 



La phi nd Longspur 



Fringilla lapponica Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 10. 1758. 1:180 

 Plectrophanes lapponicus DeKay. Zool.N.Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 177, fig. 159 

 Calcarius lapponicus lapponicus A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. 



p. 251. No. 536 



calcarius, Lat., calcar, a spur, referring to the long, rather straight hind claw; lap- 

 ponicus, of Lapland 



Description. Slightly smaller than the Snowflake; hind claw even 

 more elongated; bill somewhat more slender; tail more forked; in general, 

 darker in coloration; upper parts light brownish streaked with blackish. 

 Male in summer: Head, throat and chest black; a buffy stripe behind the 

 eye; sides streaked with black; belly white; hind neck chestnut. Male 

 in fall and winter: The black and rufous more or less obscured by the 

 brownish white tips of the feathers, but the black showing through, 

 particularly in the region behind the eye, on the lower cheek, the sides of 

 the throat, and on the chest. Female in summer: Like the winter male, 

 but the black areas more broken; the hind neck streaked with blackish. 

 Female in winter: Brownish and less sharply streaked, lower parts brownish 

 white. Young: Above tawny buff streaked with black; beneath, pale 

 buffy, chest and sides streaked with blackish. 



Length d" 6.1-6.9 inches, 9 5.5-6; wing d" 3-6-3-9. ? 3-5~3-6; tail 

 2.55; bill .4. 



Distribution. The Lapland longspur, like the Snowflake, is found 

 throughout the northern half of the northern hemisphere, in America 

 breeding from latitude 73 on the Arctic islands and 75 degrees in east 

 Greenland, southward to the limit of trees in Mackenzie and northern 

 L T ngava; winters from southern Quebec and Dakota southward to the 

 Middle States and Texas. In New York this longspur has always been 

 regarded as a rare or uncommon species, but I have no doubt that this 

 rating has been the result of inability to distinguish it among the flocks 

 of snowflakes with which it associates. Though the darker plumage of 



