THE OSPREY. 43 



of a flock of McCown's Longspurs. They were crouching silently in the 

 hollows of the road and in depressions of the ground, and I was not aware of 

 their presence until I startled several near me. When flushed at my approach, 

 after sitting undisturbed until 1 was only five or six feet away from them, six 

 or eight of them would flitter farther away, uttering a sharp chipping note as 

 they flittered to stations beyond mo. 



When I discovered myself among them, by looking carefully around me 

 I could see them crouched upon the ground on all sides of me, their gray 

 attire assimilating them as closely with the background that only by their 

 black croscentic breast markings could I detect them. Frequently, however, 

 some of them would emit their chipping call in a gentle tone, and thus I could 

 note their positions. In several instances there were fifty of the flock crouched 

 around me, their black breasts showing as black spots on the dreary gray her- 

 bage and prairie soil. 



After spending some time in watching them, I moved away without 

 startling them. When out of their midst, and about sixty yaixls to one side 

 of their position, I was attracted by a series of strange songs, uttered with 

 unusual force. Walking in the direction of the unfamiliar music, I found that 

 the Longspurs were the authors, and for many minutes 1 watched difi'erent 

 songsters twittering their pretty little songs. The performance was a continu- 

 ous chatter, having some resemblance to portions of Meadowlark music. It 

 was also quite similar to the continuous, hurried measures of the Horned 

 Larks, though louder and clearer. In some instances the performer uttered 

 the act of singing while pecking for seeds among the dead herbage, thus 

 showing a farther resemblance in habit to the Horned Larks. A noticeable 

 feature of the performance was the movements of the white throats as the 

 spirited measures bubbled forth. 



In a wagon trip across many miles of prairie in the last week of May, 

 1899, I was regaled by the well-known flight-songs of the males of this species. 

 Numbers of them were frequently seen in the air at one time, some of them 

 mounting upward in irregular, undulating, star-like lines of movement, pour- 

 ing forth their hurried bursts of song; others could be seen floating downward 

 with outspread, elevated wings, uttering their ecstatic measures as they slowly 

 floated to earth without moving a feather. This was in the best period of the 

 breeding season, but circumstances rendered it necessary that I should neglect 

 the desire to further my acquaintance with this Longspur at this time. 



On May 26, 1900, I found my first evidence of the nidification of 

 McCown's Longspur. A female was surprised in making a depression at the 

 base of a tuft of lupine. She fluttered upward and away almost from under 

 my feet. The depression was about finished and ready for the construction of 

 the nest. 



