1630 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 paet 3 



July 1. I found a nest with three eggs. Discovered it by watching the female 

 only a few minutes. She returned to it by flying first to a tree for a brief stay, 

 then to the ground. 



July 4. I found a nest with four eggs near the Gravel Pit. 



July 9. Today I photographed the Gravel Pit nest and female. The nest 

 contained three young with one egg lying alongside. The nest was placed in 

 the open with a clump of grass at the north side. It was constructed of grasses, 

 lined with five white Willow Ptarmigan feathers, and sunk in dry moss not two 

 feet from the edge of a small pond. When I first approached the nest I was 

 greeted with a sudden rush and flight from beneath my feet. Alighting just 

 four feet away, the female spread her tail downward so that it touched the ground, 

 dropped her wings slightly and lowered her head as well. She then crept about 

 slowly, her rump feathers lifted slightly, and uttered her rattling cries. 



For the first hour the female did not come to the nest, but having gained 

 courage, she returned repeatedly. She always approached on foot, stopping at 

 intervals. Once she remained "glued" near the nest for about four minutes, 

 making no motion except flickering her eyelids. The male came near the nest 

 with food in his beak, but after eyeing the blind a short while, swallowed the 

 food and departed. The female fed the young at least five times during my two 

 hours in the blind. She found the food always in the near vicinity of the nest, 

 and was seldom out of my view. 



Eggs. — Most subsequent descriptions of the eggs of this species 

 seem to have been copied from Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1874), 

 who state they "have a light clay-colored ground, are marked with 

 obscure blotches of lavender and darker lines, dots, and blotches of 

 dark purplish-brown." Coues (1903) considers them "less heavily 

 colored than those of lapponicus usually are, and thus closely 

 resembling those of ornatus." The usual clutch size is four or five, 

 and rarely six eggs. W. G. F. Harris reports by letter: "The 

 measurements of 50 eggs average 21.0 by 15.0 mm.; the eggs showing 

 the four extremes measure 23.9 by 15.5, 22.4 by 16.3, 18.8 by 14.7, 

 and 20.9 by 13.7 mm." 



Young.— J. R. Jehl, Jr., and D. J. T. Russell (1966) say of the 

 incubation period: "Previously unknown, the periods at three nests 

 were 11%, 11%, and 12 days." Irving (1960) notes that young birds 

 in Alaska "had reached adult weight on July 27." 



In August, 1958, 1 had the opportunity to visit Churchill, Manitoba, 

 where Mrs. H. L. Smith kindly showed me the areas Smith's longspur 

 inhabits. At one place a male flew up from the ground, steadily 

 giving the alarm rattle. A few moments later two nearly full-grown 

 young and a female flew up from the ground near the base of a spruce. 

 The male meanwhile perched near the top of a black spruce 8 feet 

 high, which surprised me considerably, for I had seen the species 

 previously only on the ground or flying overhead. 



Food. — Martin, Zim, and Nelson (1951 J report that 21 stomachs 

 collected in Illinois in winter contained mainly seeds of dropseedgrass 

 (Sporobolus) , bristlegrass (Silaria) and panicgrass (Panicum), with 



