350 Birds of Colorado 
The male in summer has the back, scapulars, greater part of the 
primaries, inner secondaries, alula, greater wing-coverts and the middle 
tail-feathers black, rest of the plumage white; the female in winter 
has the head and neck more or less streaked like the back, and the 
rusty wash not quite so strong as in the winter male; the breeding 
female is without the rusty-brown wash. 
Distribution.—The northern parts of the Old and New Worlds, breeding 
in the arctic or subarctic regions from northern Labrador and Alaska, 
migrating south in winter, normally to the northern states, irregularly 
as far south as Georgia, Ohio and Colorado. 
The Snow-Bunting is a rare and somewhat irregular winter visitor 
to Colorado. It is most often met with on the plains in the north-east 
corner of the State: Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder and Denver are 
mentioned as localities by Cooke ; there are a pair in the Aiken collec- 
tion taken near Colorado Springs in the winter of 1876-7, and Morrison 
(88) saw a small flock of six on March 1st during a heavy snow-storm 
at Fort Lewis in La Plata co.; though normally only found on the 
plains, it was observed by Carter on one occasion between Breckenridge 
and Middle Park at about 8,000 feet. 
Habits.—The Snow-Bunting is a common bird in the 
arctic regions as far north as explorations have been 
made ; it comes south in winter in vast flocks, but hardly 
comes regularly so far south as Colorado, though common 
in Wyoming and Nebraska. Its food consists chiefly 
of seeds in winter, and as long as these are to be obtained 
the birds live happily, even when the thermometer is 
30° below zero. 
Genus CALCARIUS. 
Terrestrial Finches of medium size—wings three to four inches—with 
a small bill, which, however is larger than that of Plectrophenax, and 
has the upper mandible as deep or deeper than the lower; nostrils 
exposed ; wings and tail as in Plectrophenax, the latter slightly longer, 
exceeding -7 in wing, doubly rounded and more than half concealed 
by the elongated coverts; claw of hind toe slender, elongated and 
nearly straight ; plumage streaked ; tail-feathers with white and black, 
obliquely arranged. 
The Longspurs are also circumpolar in distribution, breeding in the 
arctic regions of both hemispheres and on the great plains of North 
America; they migrate south in winter. One of the three American 
species (Calcarius pictus) is said to be common in Kansas by Goss, and 
