McCOWN'S LONGSPUR 1571 



Hind (1860) describes one such holocaust which "extended for one 

 thousand miles in length and several hundreds in breadth." 



In the last 40 years at least, agricultural methods have largely 

 prevented uncontrolled prairie fires or have contained them to the 

 smallest area possible. One wonders if fire and its effect on the grass- 

 lands' environment, however minute and subtle, may be involved in 

 the changing boundaries of the breeding range of McCown'slongspur; 

 whether fire is implicated in the environmental requirements of this 

 species as there is the possibility that it may be in the requirements of 

 Kirtland's warbler in Michigan (Van Tyne, 1953), although these have 

 not yet been determined. 



Nor can one ignore such factors as Frank Roy (1958) underscores in 

 his query concerning the Coteau region of Saskatchewan: "Has 

 cultivation brought about this rather sudden decline in the longspur 

 population? Do newer methods of cultivation, and more frequent 

 tilling to eradicate weeds, make it impossible for longspurs to rear their 

 young in regions where they were abundant as recently as fifteen 

 years ago?" Also the possible effects of aerial spraying, pesticides, 

 herbicides, and fertilizers upon the vast and still somewhat mysterious 

 complex of soil composition and vegetational relationships have still to 

 be assessed. 



Once McCown's longspur apparently ranged a country where fences 

 were farther apart than rivers or the far plateaus; today it nests where 

 barbed and woven wire proclaim the domesticity of plowed acres. 

 Once it bred on the plains where its associates included the antelope 

 and the buffalo; today it is neighbor to the Hereford and the baby 

 Angus. 



Spring. — Even while the blusters of spring are still raging on its 

 summer range, McCown's longspur leaves its wintering grounds. 

 In Texas watchers report that it usually leaves the San Antonio 

 region late in March or early in April (Dresser, 1865; N. C. Brown, 

 1882, 1884) and the western areas, such as Tom Green and Concho 

 counties, in March (Lloyd, 1887). An occasional straggler might 

 be encountered as late as May (Cruickshank, 1950). In Arizona it 

 apparently departs the southeast region late in February (Monson, 

 1942) and the central east in March (Swinburne, 1888). In New 

 Mexico H. K. Coale (1894) collected a pair in March 1892 near Fort 

 Union in the northwestern part of the state while A. W. Anthony 

 (1892) writes that he saw them only until February in the south- 

 western region. 



Apparently McCown's responds early to subtle environmental and 

 physiological stimuli toward migration, for it arrives in numbers on 

 "the Laramie Plains during the first week in April" (Mickey, 1943), 

 in east and north central Montana from mid-April to the third week 



