398 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



were only stragglers, though recently they appear to occur 

 regularly in limited numbers at Pine Point, near Scarboro. 

 The species may be sought chiefly along the coast and more 

 seldom indeed in the interior from about October twenty -seventh 

 until late March. Their call is a whistled "chirr" and they 

 also utter a song or cry of a few notes, generally keeping up 

 this calling while on the wing. Their chief associates here are 

 Snowflakes and Horned Larks with which they are usually 

 associated, more seldom here in small flocks of four or five by 

 themselves. In the west they occur in flocks of thousands by 

 themselves. They are seed eaters and partake of much the 

 same diet as the Snowflakes. 



About the Great Slave Lake, Mackenzie River and in 

 Alaska they nest in May and June, placing the nests of mosses, 

 dry grass and sedges on the ground in tussocks and on hum- 

 mocks. Four to six, usually five eggs are said to be laid and 

 these are described as being greenish gray to bluish white, 

 obscured and washed with clouded markings of greenish gray, 

 chocolate brown and grayish brown. 



538. Calcarius ornattis (Towns.^. Chestnut-collared Long- 

 spur. 



Plumage of adult male in summer : top of head, spot on ear coverts, line 

 behind eye, breast and belly black ; rufous collar at rear of neck ; line over 

 eye, chin and throat white ; rear row of lesser wing coverts white, others 

 black. Plumage of adult male in winter : the black feathers of the head 

 and under parts tipped with brownish or buffy so as to partly or entirely 

 conceal the black ; otherwise as in summer. Plumage of adult female : 

 grayish brown, streaked with dusky above; grayish buffy brown below, 

 sometimes streaked with darker; under tail coverts whitish. Immature 

 plumage : general color above dusky, the feathers edged with whitish and 

 brownish buff ; lower parts grayish buff, streaked on the breast with dusky. 

 Claw always as long if not longer than the subtending toe. Wing 3.30 ; bill 

 0.38. 



Geog. Dist. — Interior North America, breeding from eastern Manitoba, 

 western Minnesota and eastern Nebraska westward and northward to Mon- 

 tana and Assiniboia; casual west of the Rocky Mountains; straggler to 

 Massachusetts and Maine. 



