te THE WESTERN LARK SPARROW. 
Chehalis Counties. Bendire reported them from Camp Harney in eastern 
Oregon, and Brooks says they are common on Sumas Prairie, B. C.; but we 
have only one authentic record for this State, that of a straggler taken near 
Seattle in October, 1907. These Longspurs abound in Alaska during the nest- 
ing season, but it would appear that the mountain barriers habitually deflect 
their autumnal flight to the eastward, and that the few which reach us straggle 
down the coast. 
Those who have seen Iowa prairies give up these birds by scores and 
hundreds every few rods, have been able to form some conception of their vast 
numbers, but it remained for the storm of March 13-14, 1904, to reveal the 
real order of magnitude of their abundance. An observer detailed by the 
Minnesota State Natural History Survey estimates that a million and a half 
of these “Lapland” Longspurs perished in and about the village of Worthing- 
ton alone; and he found that this destruction, tho not elsewhere so intense. 
extended over an area of fifteen hundred square miles. 
In spite of such buffetings of fortune, those birds which do reach Alaska 
bring a mighty cheer with them to the solitudes. As Nelson says: “When 
they arrive early in May the ground it still largely covered with snow with the 
exception of grassy spots along southern exposures and the more favorably 
situated portions of the tundra, and here may be found these birds in all the 
beauty of their elegant summer dress. The males, as if conscious of their 
handsome plumage, choose the tops of the only breaks in the monotonous level, 
which are small rounded knolls and tussocks. ‘The male utters its song as it 
flies upward from one of these knolls and when it reaches the height of ten or 
fifteen yards, it extends the points of its wings upwards, forming a large 
V-shaped figure, and floats gently to the ground, uttering, as it slowly sinks, 
its liquid tones, which fall in tinkling succession upon the ear, and are perhaps 
the sweetest notes that one hears during the entire spring-time in these regions. 
It is an exquisite jingling melody, having much less power than that of the 
Bobolink, but with the same general character, and, tho shorter, it has even 
more melody than the song of that well known bird.” 
No. 38. 
WESTERN LARK SPARROW. 
A. O. U. No. 552a. Chondestes grammacus strigatus (Swains.). 
Synonyms.—QuaIL-HEAD. WESTERN LARK FINCH. 
Description—Adult: Head variegated, black, white, and chestnut; lateral 
head-stripes black in front, chestnut behind ; auriculars chestnut, bounded by rictal 
and post-orbital black stripes; narrow loral, and broader submalar black stripes; 
malar, superciliary, and median stripes white, the two latter becoming buffy 
