SPRAGUE'S PIPIT 53 



ternational boundary in 1873, of which he wrote at that time : "It is 

 one of the most abundant birds of all the region along the forty-ninth 

 parallel of latitude, from just west of the Pembina Mountains to as 

 far as the survey progressed this year — about four hundred miles ; I 

 had no difficulty in taking as many specimens as I desired. They were 

 particularly numerous at various points along the Souris or Mouse 

 Kiver, where, during our marches or while we were encamped, they 

 were almost continually hovering about us." 



The 1931 Check-list gives its breeding range as "from west-central 

 Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba south to western Montana and 

 North Dakota," but it has been reported in recent years as breeding in 

 some localities outside of this range. In 1942, A. D. Henderson told me 

 that Sprague's pipit was then "a rather scarce breeder at Belvedere," 

 Alberta. About the same time, Frank L. Farley, of Camrose, wrote 

 to me : "This splendid aerial songster is a regular summer resident of 

 the open prairies of central Alberta, and in recent years it has ap- 

 peared in fair numbers in scattered parkland areas that have been 

 cleared and brought under cultivation. It also delights in the open, 

 short-grass plains that surround many of our alkaline lakes and 

 sloughs. The most northerly point at which I have found this pipit 

 was on the south side of Lesser Slave Lake, approximately in latitude 

 55° N., w^here a pair was undoubtedly nesting." 



Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) states that Sprague's pipit "was once 

 a nesting bird in the southwestern and westcentral parts of Minne- 

 sota, but the breaking up of the prairies probably caused it to leave that 

 region many years ago." It is now probably restricted in that State 

 to the Red River Valley, in the northern half of the western border. 

 Dr. Roberts visited that valley in 1928 and says that "it was something 

 of a surprise to find that Sprague's Pipit was one of the common birds 

 of the Valley, its tinkling song being heard high overhead everywhere." 



An interesting Michigan record is published by Trautman and Van 

 Tyne (1935), who collected a singing male in Crawford County on 

 June 26, 1935 : "On the three days it was observed the bird occupied a 

 territory about a quarter of a mile square of barren 'jack pine plain,' 

 sparsely covered with coarse grasses, sweet fern, and a few small pine 

 and oak saplings." 



This habitat, if I understand it correctly, seems to be quite different 

 from the normal haunts of the species, such as the open prairies and 

 the short-grass, rolling plains of Saskatchewan where we found it. 

 Perhaps, with the gradual breaking up and cultivation, as well as the 

 extensive burning, of the virgin prairies, which is rapidly reducing 

 the ranges of all the prairie birds, Sprague's pipit, like the upland 

 plover, is learning to adapt itself to the next-best type of country, 

 such as the above and the parkland areas mentioned by Mr. Farley. 

 Wlien I visited the prairies around Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, in 1915, 



