COMMON LAPLAND LONGSPUR 1597 



Late dates of spring departure are: Minnesota — Lac Qui Parle 

 County, May 8. Texas — Amarillo, April 4; Austin, March 27. 

 Oklahoma — Camp Supply, March 8. Kansas — northeastern Kansas, 

 April 3 (median of 5 years, February 17). New Mexico — Fort Union, 

 March 22. Arizona— Bowie, March 7. 



Early dates of fall arrival are: New Mexico — Mescalero Indian 

 Agency, September 12. Kansas — northeastern Kansas, October 29 

 (median of 4 years, November 7). Oklahoma — Comanche County, 

 November 21. Texas — Amarillo, October 18; Austin, November 15. 



Late dates of fall departure are: Wyoming — Laramie, October 27 

 (average of 6 years, October 12). 



Egg dates. — Montana: 10 records, May 9 to July 28; 5 records, 

 May 9 to May 26. 



North Dakota: 17 records, May 17 to July 22; 9 records, May 27 

 to June 10. 



Saskatchewan: 7 records, May 28 to June 14. 



Wyoming: 5 records, May 17 to June 29. 



CALCARIUS LAPPONICUS LAPPONICUS (Linnaeus) 



Common Lapland Longspur 

 Contributed by Francis S. L. Williamson 



Habits 



In North America the range of the Lapland longspur extends from 

 northwestern Mackenzie over the vast expanses of tundra of the arctic 

 and subarctic regions northward to Ellesmere Island and eastward to 

 the Atlantic Ocean in Labrador. The following remarks show the 

 habitat this species prefers remains essentially the same over this 

 enormous region. T. H. Manning, O. Hohn, and A. H. Macpherson 

 (1956) found longspurs most numerous on Banks Island in "marshes 

 and better vegetated country." It occurs throughout Prince of Wales 

 Island except on the barren disintegrated limestone uplands (Manning 

 and Macpherson, 1961). J. Dewey Soper (1946) remarks that the 

 species is scarce in the mountainous eastern half of Baffin Island and 

 reaches the height of its abundance on the great tundras of the west 

 where "it inhabits localized flats of a swampy nature, but its favorite 

 breeding grounds are wide, moist tundras interspersed with ponds 

 and streams and studded with grassy tussocks." 



V. C. Wynne-Edwards (1952) states that the most suitable habitats 

 at Clyde Inlet on Baffin Island are wet tussocky meadows, and in 

 the southern part of that island Sutton and Parmelee (1955) found 



