THE LAPLAND LONGSPUR, 



[Calcarius lapponicus.) 



thou northlancl bobolink, 



Looking over slimmer 's brink 



Up to winter, worn and dim, 



Peering down from mountain rim^ 



Something takes me in thy note, 



Quivering wing, and bubbling throat; * 



Something moves me in thy ways — 



Bird, rejoicing in thy days, 



In thy upward-hovering flight, 



In thy suit of black and white. 

 Chestnut cape and circled crown, 

 In thy mate of speckled brown ; 

 Surely I may pause and think 



Of my boyhood's bobolink. 



— John Burroughs, ^'To the Lapland Longspur. " 



The Lapland Longspur is a bird that 

 deUghts in the fresh and bracing air of 

 the Arctic regions of both continents. 

 There it builds its nest, rears its young 

 and voices its happiness in song. Lov- 

 ing the cool atmosphere of the North, it 

 migrates southward only when its food 

 supply of grain and other seeds is ex- 

 hausted or becomes covered with snow. 

 During the winter months they are 

 at)undant in the interior of the United 

 States as far south as Kansas and are 

 not uncommon in Texas. 



The Lapland Longspurs are highly 

 gregarious. They associate with the 

 horned larks and the snowflakes though 

 they range somewhat farther south in 

 winter than the latter birds. Not infre- 

 quently, when a flock of horned larks is 

 passing overhead, the presence of the 

 Longspurs is revealed by their quiet but 

 characteristic twitter. Like the snow- 

 flake, the hind claw is greatly dev.eIop- 

 ed and it is this characteristic that has 

 given the bird of our illustration its 

 common name. 



In his ''Birds of Manitoba," Mr. Ern- 

 est E. Thompson gives an interesting 

 account of the northward migration of 

 the Longspurs. He writes : "High in 

 the air they fly in long, straggling 



flocks, all singing together, a thousand 

 voices, a tornado of whistling. Over 

 the prairies they go, on to the newly- 

 sown fields, and here the flocks drop a 

 feeler — a sort of anchor or pivot, around 

 which the whole body swings; then lift- 

 ing again their anchor they wheel about 

 and iperform two or three evolutions, 

 again drop their anchor and at length 

 form a dense close column, and ceasing 

 whistling, they swoop down to the field 

 to forage. When sprung, they rise in 

 a dense body, but at once spread out and 

 begin the merry whistling. It is a pecu- 

 liar sound of multitudinous melody, 

 but not loud and in some respects like 

 the sleigh-bell chorus of the black- 

 bird." 



Regarding the Lapland Longspur as 

 it is known in its nesting home on the 

 grassy flats of Alaska, Mr. E. W. Nel- 

 son has said : ''The males, as if con- 

 scious of their handsome plumage, 

 choose the tops of the only breaks in 

 the monotonous level which are small, 

 rounded knolls and tussocks. The male 

 utters its song as it flies upward from 

 one of these knolls, and when it reaches 

 the height of ten or fifteen yards, it ex- 

 tends the points of its wings upward, 

 forming a large V-shaped figure, and 



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