1568 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



nivalis, enough to separate them generically in the prevailing fashion. 

 * * * Maccown's Bunting has precisely the habits of C. ornatus, 

 with which it is associated during the breeding season in Dakota 

 and Montana." 



When in 1946 Olin S. Pettingill, Jr., collected in Saskatchewan what 

 proved to be a hybrid between the chestnut-collared and McCown's 

 longspurs, the problem was discussed again. Enumerating similar- 

 ities and differences, Sibley and Pettingill (1955) argue that, despite 

 the difference in the size of the bill, the point of distinction between 

 the two longspurs, "It is demonstrable that it merely represents the 

 extreme development in a graded series." The authors conclude 

 that "it seems doubtfully valid to separate the members of the genus 

 Calcarius, including the Chestnut-collared, Lapland (C. lapponicus) 

 and Smith's (C. pictus) longspurs from the monotypic genus Rhynco- 

 phanes." They recommend a return to the genus Calcarius. 



Once the species ranged in the breeding season over the wide prairie 

 interiors of the western United States and the southern expanses 

 of the Canadian prairie provinces: Oklahoma (Nice, 1931), Colorado 

 (Bergtold, 1928; Bailey and Niedrach, 1938), Wyoming (McCready, 

 1939; Mickey, 1943), Nebraska (Carriker, 1902), South Dakota 

 (Visher, 1913, 1914), Minnesota (Brown, 1891; Currie, 1890), North 

 Dakota (Allen, in Coues, 1874; Coues, 1878), Manitoba (Taverner, 

 1927), Saskatchewan (Raine, 1892; Macoun, 1909) and Alberta 

 (Macoun, 1909). 



If the foregoing is an indication of its former nesting grounds, then 

 the breeding range of McCown's has been drastically reduced. It 

 is no longer included among the breeding birds of Kansas (Johnston, 

 1964), if indeed it ever nested there, nor of Nebraska, where it is now 

 designated a migrant and a winter resident (Rapp, Rapp, Baurn- 

 garten, and Moser, 1958). 



In South Dakota it was last recorded by Visher (1914) in 1914; 

 since 1949, no authenticated nesting has been reported (Krause, 

 1954; Holden and Hall, 1959). It vanished from the Minnesota 

 scene after 1900 (Roberts, 1932) except for a single observation of 

 two fall stragglers in October 1936 near Hassem (Peterson and Peter- 

 son, 1936). The first authentic specimen for Manitoba was not 

 collected until May 1925 according to P. A. Taverner (1927); its 

 status as a breeding bird in the province is at the moment unclear. 



In North Dakota it has been reported from the southwest (Allen, 

 in Coues, 1874), northeast (Peabody, in Roberts, 1932, at Pembina), 

 and northwest (Coues, 1878). But Robert E. Stewart, wildlife 

 research biologist of the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center 

 at Jamestown, writes me (1964): "During the first quarter of this 

 century, the species gradually disappeared over the greater portion 



