BIKDS. ^^^J/Ji::,a .._^i/- / ;_-. 175 



in its undulating flight seems to f:url,y launch itself into the air, 

 spreading its wings so wide that their yellow patches sliow. At Gun- 

 sight Lake, from a bear grass alcove between conifers, one day a 

 siskin answered a brother passing overhead with an almost ])nre gold- 

 finch — ^canary — note, over and o\'er again; Ijut at last, taking wing it 

 launched out with the true wild call of its kind. Some that we 

 watched through the glass seemed to l)e picking small insects from the 

 needles of the firs, but when, in more usual custom, they hung head 

 down from the catkins at the tip of the birch branches, they were 

 doubtless extracting seeds. 



At Lake McDonald the last of August, when a family lit on the 

 broad top of a stub, small Avings fluttered and young voices en- 

 treated — then all were off in air again. Around the hotel and up the 

 lake shore, flocks were heard gi\'ing both their own wild notes and 

 the sweet homelike notes of the goldfinches, and some of the little 

 birds were seen coming down to the water's edge to drinlc. On Mi-. 

 Bailey's return to Lake McDonald in April the siskins were coming 

 to the doorstep of Lewis's for crumbs, often flying into the house. 

 They were numerous all through the valley of the North Fork of the 

 Flathead and around the camps and ranches. 



Snow Bunting : Plectrophcnax nivalis nivcdis- — The white and 

 rustjf snowflakes which breed in the circumpolar regions come down 

 into the northern United States in winter in large flocks, their appear- 

 ance being considered a " sure sign of snow," and Mr. Gibb says 

 thousands of them come into the park. 



Alaska Longsptje : Calcarius lapponicuH alascensis. — Breeding in 

 Alaska, the longspurs winter as far south as Colorado and western 

 Kansas. Large flocks have been noted by Mr. Stevenson in spring, 

 and they have been seen in fall by Mr. Bryant on the prairie patches 

 of the North Fork of the Flathead, and on the ridges with the 

 leucostictes. Snowflakes and pipits are often seen in company with 

 the longspurs, Mr. Bryant says. He has positively identified only 

 this one species of longspur — with black foreparts and white belly — 

 but suspects that a " close examination of the long.spur flock would 

 reveal some McCown and jDOSsibly chestnut-collared." 



Chestnut-collared Longspue: Calcarius ornafus. — The Chestnut- 

 collared, which breeds from Alberta to Kansas and can be distin- 

 guished from the Alaska longspur by its black underparts, which 

 contrast sharply with its white and buffy throat, should be carefully 

 Avatched for, as Dr. Grinnell thinks he has seen it on the Inlet Flat 

 between the two St. Mary Lakes, and in June, 1895, Messrs. Bailey 

 a,nd Howell saw one not far from the park line, and found them 

 common on the lower plains near Blackfoot. 



