1564 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 3 



Casual record. — Casual in the Cape District of Baja California 

 (Todos Santos). 



RHYNCHOPHANES McCOWNII (Lawrence) 



McCown's Longspur 



PLATE 76 



Contributed by Herbert Krause 



Habits 



Whether on its winter range or summer breeding ground, McCown's 

 longspur is a bird of the plains, of the "big sky" country where the 

 land flattens to the blue haze of mesa or plateau; where distance is 

 the hawk's flight from a line of craggy "breaks" to the horizon. Amid 

 the features of such a vast landscape it was first collected about 1851. 

 It happened apparently as much by accident as by design. "I fired 

 at a flock of Shore Larks," writes Capt. John P. McCown, U.S.A. 

 (1851), "and found this bird among the killed." For this, in the first 

 published description of the bird, George N. Lawrence (1851) 

 announced, "It gives me pleasure to bestow upon this species the 

 name of my friend, Capt. J. P. McCown, U.S.A." He adds, "Two 

 specimens were obtained * * * on the high prairies of Western 

 Texas. When killed, they were feeding in company with Shore Larks. 

 Although procured late in the spring, they still appear to be in their 

 winter dress." 



Very likely this is the bird that the fatigued Captain Meriwether 

 Lewis saw on the Marias River (near Loma, Choteau County, Mont.). 

 Had he been more explicit in his description he might have added 

 McCown's longspur to the magpie and the prairie dog on the list of 

 species new to science the Lewis and Clark Expedition was to bring 

 out of the vast northwestern wilderness. As it happened, the com- 

 pany was footsore and weary, slightly rebellious, and nearly at the 

 rope's end of its resources when on June 2, 1805, with its usual unpre- 

 dictableness, the Missouri River divided in front of the explorers. 

 One branch bore down on them from the right or north, the other 

 seemed to come from the south or left, each flow about equally wicked 

 in its rolling turbidity. Which was the Missouri and which its 

 affluent? An incorrect decision meant days of toil and pain spent for 

 nothing, incalculable delay, the threat of spending winter in the 

 mountains. On June 4, 1805, Lewis and six men, taking the right- 

 hand fork, the Marias River, explored upstream. A day's march 

 brought him to extensive "plains" where prickly pear tore his feet 

 through his "Mockersons," where rain soaked, and a windstorm chilled 



