During the summer of 1881 I found them nesting on St. Law- 

 rence Island, in Bering Sea, and on both sides of Bering Strait, but I 

 saw no trace of them on Wrangel and Herald islands. They are 

 well known and abundant on the Fur Seal Islands, where they are 

 the most beautiful songsters among the limited number of land-birds 

 summering there. They winter through parts of central Europe and 

 middle Asia to Japan, and through the middle-northern United States, 

 mainly from the Great Lakes to Oregon and Washington, and some- 

 times extend as far south as Texas. 



Early in May, the tundra on the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea 

 is still mostly covered with snow, except in grassy spots on southern 

 exposures and other favorably situated places. Here the first male 

 longspurs suddenly appear in all the beauty of their summer dress. 

 At this season, the males are beautiful birds, the head and breast 

 being jet-black with white or bufify stripes back of the eyes, the back 

 of the neck bright rufous, and the back streaked with black and 

 brownish. The females, as usually among birds, are more obscurely 

 marked, and reach the breeding-ground a little later than the males. 

 They arrive on the coast of Norton Sound in flocks and spread rapidly 

 over their breeding-ground. Despite the bleak surroundings and 

 chilling winds, they are soon abundant after the first arrivals, and 

 by the middle of May are in full song. As if conscious of their hand- 

 some appearance, the males choose the tops of projecting tussocks, 

 rocks, or the small knolls that alone break the monotonous surface, 

 where their bright colors render them conspicuous. 



The Lapland longspur is one of the few birds, which, like the 

 skylark and the bobolink, are so filled with the ecstasy of life in spring 

 that they must rise into the air to pour forth their joy in singing. 

 The males are scattered here and there over the tundra on their 

 chosen projecting points, and at frequent intervals mount slowly 

 on tremulous wings ten or fifteen yards into the air. There they 

 pause a moment and then, with wings up-pointed, forming V-shaped 

 figures, they float gently back to their perches, uttering, as they sink, 

 their liquid notes, which fall in tinkling succession on the ear. It 

 is an exquisite, slightly jingling melody, with less power than but 

 slightly resembling the song of the boboHnk. By the last of May 

 each eager songster has procured for himself a mate, and they build 

 a snug -^st, well placed in the heart of a sheltering tussock or on a 

 dry knoll, in which are placed from four to seven eggs. During my 

 residence at St. Michael I examined many nests, and the number 

 might readily have been doubled. One could scarcely walk about the 



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