BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 3807 
may become so pressed with ‘‘imminent incubation” as to make 
a necessity of ‘‘sweating it out’, rearing a family with the 
temperature, as occasionally, 108° in the shade. 
It is known to breed on the meadows along the shores of the 
Arctic sea, in Alaska, where it arrives the second week of 
May. It is also at home about Great Slave lake and McKenzie 
river. At all these places its song is said to be eminently 
beautiful. 
Dr. Coues tells us the eggs are rather pointed at the smaller 
end; are dark colored with a thick mottling of chocolate- 
brown through which the greenish-gray ground is scarcely 
apparent. The nests are constructed of such materials as are 
readily obtained in the surrounding localities, namely—‘‘mosses 
and fine dried grasses, ‘and lined with a few large feathers from 
water-fowls, and are placed on the ground, under tussocks, in 
grassy hammocks.” As the name of this species naturally 
suggests, the nail of the heel-toe is long and straight like a 
spur, by which, if necessary, they could be readily identified 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
First quill longest; legs, head all around, and a semicircular 
patch extending to the upper part of the breast, black; sides 
of lower neck and under parts white, with black streaks on 
the sides and spots on the side of the breast; a short, brown 
ish-white streak back of the eye; a broad chestnut collar on 
the back of the neck; rest of upper parts brownish-yellow 
streaked with dark brown; outer tail feathers white, except on 
the basal portion of the inner web. 
Length, 6.25; wing, 3.90; tail, 2.80. 
Habitat, northern portions of Northern Hemisphere. 
CALCARIUS PICTUS (Swarnson). (537.) 
SMITH’S LONGSPUR. 
This Longspur has become more commonly observed of late, 
but escaped my notice for several years after.I resided here. 
A few are obtained in autumn from year to year, ever since it 
came under my observation. So far as I know, Mr. R. 
Kennicott (who obtained it in Pembina in September, 1857) 
was the first to discover it in what was then the Territory of 
Minnesota. It is usually associated with the Lapland Long- 
spurs, and the identity is only discovered when in hand. I 
know no more of its habits. 
