COUES ON BIRDS OF DAKOTA AND MONTANA. 



579 



or wanting. Entire under parts buff or rich yellowish-brown, paler on 

 the chin and throat, which, like the forebreast, are obsoletely streaked 

 with dusky. Tibios white. Two or three outer feathers of the tail only 

 white. Bill dusky-brown above and at the end, paler below. Feet 

 light brown, toes darker. In no stage of plumage of F. ornatus are the 

 under parts extensively buffy, while all the tail-feathers, excepting per- 

 haps the middle pair, are white at the base. 



List of specimens. 



PLECTEOPHANES OENATDS, Towns. 

 Chestnut-collared Longspur. 



These birds were not noticed in the immediate valley of the Eed Eiver; 

 but no sooner had I passed the Pembina Mountains than I found them 

 in profusion. Throughout this part of the country they are wonderfully 

 abundant, even exceeding in the aggregate either Baird's Bunting or 

 the Missouri Skylark. Their numbers continued undiminished to the 

 farthest point reached by my party during the first season — the head- 

 waters of Mouse Eiver — and they were still in the country when I 

 left, the second week in October. The next season I noticed but few 

 along the Upper Missouri and Lower Milk Eiver, where P. maccoivm be- 

 came abundant; they were more common along Frenchman's Eiver, but 

 some little distance further westward I lost sight of them, and in a letter 

 transmitted to the "American Naturalist", from the Two Forks of Milk 

 Eiver, I was induced to suppose I had got beyond their range; this, 

 however, proved not to be the case, for subsequently 1 saw them at 

 intervals till I entered the foothills of the Eocky Mountains. The inter- 

 esting relation between the habitat of this species and of P. maccowni is 

 more fully expressed under head of the latter; here I will only advert 

 to its great abundance in the whole Eed Eiver watershed west of that 

 river itself, its sudden falling-off in numbers at the point where the Co- 

 teau de Missouri crosses 49°, yet its persistence westward to the Eocky 

 Mountains. 



My first specimens were secured July 14, 1873, at which date the early 

 broods were already on wing. Uniting of several families had scarcely 

 begun, however, nor were small flocks made up, apparently, till the first 

 broods had, as a general thing, been left to themselves, the parents busy- 

 ing themselves with a second set of eggs. Then straggling troops, con- 

 sisting chiefly of birds of the year, were almost continually seen, mixing 

 freely with Baird's Buntings and the Skylarks; in fact, most of the con- 



