I02 THE WESTERN LARK SPARROW. 



Chehalis Cnunties. Bendire reported them frdiii Camp Iiarne\' in eastern 

 Oregon, and Brooks says they are common on Snmas Prairie, B. C. : but we 

 iiave only one authentic record for this State, that of a straggler taken near 

 Seattle in October, 1907. These Longspurs abound in Alaska during the nest- 

 ing season, l)ut it would appear that the mountain barriers habitually deflect 

 their autumnal flight to the eastward, and that the few which reach us straggle 

 down the coast. 



Tlmse who have seen Iowa prairies give up these birds by scores and 

 hundreds e\'erv few rods, have been able to form some conception of their vast 

 numbers, but it remained for the storm of March 13-14, 1904, to reveal the 

 real order of magnitude of their abundance. An observer detailed by the 

 Minnesota State Natural History Survey estimates that a million and a half 

 of these "Lapland" Longspurs perished in and about the village of Worthing- 

 ton alone; and he found that this destruction, tlm imt elsewhere so intense, 

 extended over an area of fifteen hundred square miles. 



In spite of such buffetings of fortune, those birds which do reach ,\laska 

 bring a mighty cheer with them to the solitudes. As Nelson says: "When 

 they arrive early in iVIay the ground it still largely covered with snow with the 

 exception of grassy spots along southern exposures and the more favoral^ly 

 situated portions of the tundra, and here may be found these birds in all the 

 beauty of their elegant summer dress. The males, as if conscious of their 

 handsome plumage, choose the tops of the only breaks in the monotonous level, 

 which are small rounded knolls and tussocks. The male utters its song as it 

 flies upward from one of these knolls and when it reaches the heiglit of ten or 

 fifteen yards, it extends the points of its wings upwards, forming a large 

 V-shaped figure, and floats gently to the ground, uttering, as it slowly sinks, 

 its liquid tones, which fall in tinkling succession upon the ear, and are perhaps 

 the sweetest notes that one hears <luring the entire spring-time in these regions. 

 It is an exquisite jingling melody, having much less power than that of the 

 Bobolink, but with the same general character, and. tho shorter, it has even 

 more melody than the song of that well known bird." 



No. 38. 



WESTERN LARK SPARROW. 



A. O. U. No. 552a. Chondestes grammaciis strigatiis (Swains.). 



Synonyms. — Ouail-hkad. Wustkkn Lark Finch. 



Description. — Adult: Head variegated, black, white, and chestnut; lateral 

 head-stripes black in front, chestnut behind; auriculars chestnut, hounded by rictal 

 and post-orl)ital black stripes; narrow loral, and broader submalar black stripes; 

 malar, superciliary, and median stripes white, the two latter becoininc;' Inifify 



