CHESTNUT- COLLARED LONGSPUR 1645 



and soon were panting hard for breath. After a few minutes they stopped simul- 

 taneously, and were quiet for about ten minutes. Again they began, and this 

 time one bird, curiously enough the smallest of them all, pushed itself over the 

 rim and crawled and hopped away from the nest in a wildly erratic course, finally 

 coming to rest beside me two feet from the nest. Meanwhile, another bird, 

 which had projected itself over the opposite side of the nest, turned back, and, 

 shoving itself across the backs of its fellows in the nest, went toward the first 

 one. The birds began to utter the chi-eep note and were answered by their 

 parents, which were flying about overhead. After a general period of rest, a 

 third one managed to scramble out, and the second one, in amazingly strong 

 hops, followed an aimless course around the nest. 



Of the post-nestling period he writes : 



On the day of nest leaving, the bird is quite incapable of flight, and, except 

 for occasional attempts at hopping, it remains crouched in the grass, receiving 

 food from its parents. It grows, however, with extraordinary rapidity. After 

 another day it is able to fly, when alarmed, for 100 feet or more. The flight is 

 direct and labored. After alighting, the bird crouches upon the ground — I did 

 not determine the age at which it is able to stand upright and walk. 



Fourteen days after hatching (four days after leaving the nest), the young 

 bird begins to use the til-lip call note characteristic of the species. Its flight 

 has now become undulating. 



On the fifteenth day the bird is still being fed regularly by the male parent and 

 occasionally by the female. If another nest is to be started, the female stops 

 caring for the young at a time varying from two to seven days after they have left 

 the nest; thenceforth they are in the sole care of the male. 



By the twenty-fourth day, the bird appears to be fully grown. It may still 

 be attended by the male parent, but it has sometimes to assume a begging posture, 

 with wings outspread and fluttering, before the parent will give it food. 



It begins to wander at large on about the twenty sixth day. If the parents are 

 finished nesting, young and old go off together, but otherwise the young bird 

 joins roving bands of juveniles. 



The first clutches are usually laid about the middle of May. 

 DuBois's (1935) earliest clutch in Montana was May 6th. In 

 Saskatchewan we found two clutches apparently completed about 

 May 11th. New nests are started until well into July, which allows 

 ample time for a second brood, or for several rela}dngs after unsuc- 

 cessful nesting attempts. Whether more than two broods are ever 

 raised in a season is not known. Harris (1944) watched two pairs 

 complete at least two nesting in a season. He notes "a second nest 

 built by one pair was placed 40 feet away from the first nest; another 

 pair built their second nest 100 feet from the first." Two second 

 nests we found were 50 and 100 feet respectively from each pair's 

 first nest. 



Plumages. — Harris (1944) says newly-hatched young 



are covered with buffy gray down about one-fourth-inch long. On the capital 

 tract two rows of down, beginning at the loral region, run posteriorly to the 

 occipital region, where they join a transversely placed tuft. An isolated tuft 

 stands above each eyelid. A wide patch occurs in the spinal region, narrowing 



