The Alaska Langspur 205 



July and first of August, at which time the old birds are already far advanced 

 in their autumnal change. Adult males were found with nearly complete winter 

 dress on July 22, and probably some change even earlier than this. They usually 

 begin to move South before they have fully molted, so that only the com- 

 paratively few individuals which have completed the molt in September arc 

 found in perfect winter dress on their northern breeding-grounds. The young 

 are out on the wing sometimes as early as the first of July, but more generally 

 by the tenth of this month, from which time they unite in small bands, most 

 of them on the open plains, but many frequenting the vicinity of the trading- 

 posts and native villages. They remain in great abundance until the last of 

 August or first of September, when they commence their straggling departure 

 for the South. While in the neighborhood of houses, they are extremely 

 heedless of the presence of people, and are nearly as familiar as are the English 

 Sparrows in our cities. By the first of October, the last one has passed away 

 toward the South, and none are seen until returning spring brings them 

 North again. 



In winter and early spring the Longspurs are very common over the 

 prairie states of the upper half of the Mississippi River drainage, and thence 

 west to Oregon and Washington. A vivid idea of the vast number of these 

 birds in the aggregate is given by Dr. T. S. Robert's account in The Auk for 

 1907 (pp. 369-377), of the enormous number which perished during a storm 

 in northwestern Iowa and southwestern Minnesota the night of March 13-14, 

 1904. In two square miles of icy surface on two small lakes, Dr. Roberts thinks 

 nearly a million birds lay dead, and he estimates that in the vicinity probably 

 a million and a half birds perished that night. These birds had been caught 

 in a storm of wet snow while migrating and, as the total area over w^hich their 

 bodies lay scattered exceeded 1,500 square miles, it is evident that the number 

 killed must have gone into the millions. Such catastrophies as the foregoing 

 must not rarely overtake birds like these, which live on open shelterless 

 plains and exist so closely on the borders of winter. The wide extent of their 

 breeding and wintering grounds, however, insures them against any serious 

 danger to the species from local causes, no matter how destructive these 

 may be. 



