During the summer of 1881 I found them nesting on St. Law¬ 
rence Island, in Bering Sea, and on both sides of Bering Strait, but I 
saw no trace of them on Wrangel and Herald islands. They are 
well known and abundant on the Fur Seal Islands, where they are 
the most beautiful songsters among the limited number of land-birds 
summering there. They winter through parts of central Europe and 
middle Asia to Japan, and through the middle-northern United States, 
mainly from the Great Lakes to Oregon and Washington, and some¬ 
times extend as far south as Texas. 
Early in May, the tundra on the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea 
is still mostly covered with snow, except in grassy spots on southern 
exposures and other favorably situated places. Here the first male 
longspurs suddenly appear in all the beauty of their summer dress. 
At this season, the males are beautiful birds, the head and breast 
being jet-black with white or buffy stripes back of the eyes, the back 
of the neck bright rufous, and the back streaked with black and 
brownish. The females, as usually among birds, are more obscurely 
marked, and reach the breeding-ground a little later than the males. 
They arrive on the coast of Norton Sound in flocks and spread rapidly 
over their breeding-ground. Despite the bleak surroundings and 
chilling winds, they are soon abundant after the first arrivals, and 
by the middle of May are in full song. As if conscious of their hand¬ 
some appearance, the males choose the tops of projecting tussocks, 
rocks, or the small knolls that alone break the monotonous surface, 
where their bright colors render them conspicuous. 
The Lapland longspur is one of the few birds, which, like the 
skylark and the bobolink, are so filled with the ecstasy of life in spring 
that they must rise into the air to pour forth their joy in singing. 
The males are scattered here and there over the tundra on their 
chosen projecting points, and at frequent intervals mount slowly 
on tremulous wings ten or fifteen yards into the air. There they 
pause a moment and then, with wings up-pointed, forming V-shaped 
figures, they float gently back to their perches, uttering, as they sink, 
their liquid, notes, which fall in tinkling succession on the ear. It 
is an excpiisite, slightly jingling melody, with less power than but 
slightly resembling the song of the bobolink. By the last of May 
each eager songster has procured for himself a mate, and they build 
a snug -'St, well placed in the heart of a sheltering tussock or on a 
dry knoll, in which are placed from four to seven eggs. During my 
residence at St. Michael I examined many nests, and the number 
might readily have been doubled. One could scarcely walk about the 
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