CHESTNUT-COLLARED LONGSPUR 1647 



lines. Some females are mottled with concealed black on breast 

 and upper abdomen, and obscurely streaked on sides. Wings and 

 tail as in male, except two very faint wing bars. Bill, legs, and feet 

 dusky-flesh color, lighter than in male." 



We found great variation in the breeding plumages of both male 

 and female birds in Saskatchewan, so much so that we could recognize 

 many individual birds. Some males had white areas of various sizes 

 and shapes in the otherwise black underparts, and their throats 

 varied from white to buffy yellow. Many females showed vestiges 

 of such male plumage characteristics as black breast markings or 

 dull chestnut collars, but we saw none that reached the extremes 

 reported by DuBois in Montana and R. D. Harris in Montana. As 

 Harris (1944) tells it: 



Occasionally a male is encountered in summer with areas of chestnut on the 

 black underparts. Another anomaly is the occurrence of females in male 

 plumage. DuBois (.1935: 69, and 1937: 107) observed at least three female 

 of this type, one "with all the male markings"; the others in an intermediate 

 plumage, with the black underparts, but lacking the chestnut collar. A female 

 with this intermediate type of plumage was collected on June 14, 1933, by T. M. 

 and A. H. Shortt on my study area (it was carefully sexed). * * * The whole 

 plumage was like that of a male, except that all the browns were paler. 



C. G. Sibley and O. S. Pettingill, Jr. describe a hybrid between the 

 chestnut-collared and McCown's longspur they collected in an area 

 where the two species are sympatric near Regina, Saskatchewan. 

 The specimen was a male and showed intermediate characteristics 

 between the two species in each area where they normally differ. 

 The bird acted like a McCown's, but had a flight song like that of 

 the chestnut-collared. 



Food. — Very little has been published on the food of the chestnut- 

 collar. F. M. Bailey (1928) describes it as "Largely weed seeds and 

 insects, including crickets and grasshoppers, leaf beetles and weevils." 

 Roberts (1932) lists: "Seeds of grasses and other prairie plants; 

 goosefoot, pigweed, witchgrass and grains; grasshoppers, crickets, 

 beetles, bugs, caterpillars, wireworms, ants, etc." 



Martin, Zim, and Nelson (1951) give the analysis of 43 stomachs 

 from various times of year as showing the diet 100 percent plant food 

 in winter, and 72 percent animal food in summer. The animal food 

 consists of "many beetles, grasshoppers, and spiders, as well as 

 numerous other kinds of invertebrates." Leading the plant foods 

 are dropseedgrass, wheat, sunflower, and needlegrass, with lesser 

 amounts of panicgrass, three-awn, pigweed, bristlegrass, and grama- 

 grass, goosefoot, and sedge. 



Voice. — Sibley and Pettingill (1955) give the following comparison 

 of the flight songs of the chestnut-collared and McCown's longspurs: 

 "The flight songs of typical McCown's and Chestnut-collared long- 



