190S.] 



BIRDS. 



425 



Barren Grounds east of Anderson Eiver and on the shores of 

 Franklin Bay : " Baird, Brewer, and Eidgwav describe eggs from 

 that region.^ In notes sent to the Smithsonian Institution Mac- 

 Farlane states that the species arrived at Fort Anderson on May 27, 

 1865. Sharpe records specimens from Franklin Bay and Fort 

 Anderson.^ The bird catalogue of the National Museum shows that 

 skins were received from Fort Anderson and Fort Eae. 



J. Alden Loring reported longspurs common at Edmonton, 

 Alberta, in September, 189J:, and specimens taken by him there are 

 referable to C. lap-ponicus. Hubert Darrell informs me that while 

 traveling along the Arctic coast in 1902 he first saw longspurs near 

 the base of Kent Peninsula on June 1. 



Calcarius lapponicus alascensis Eiclgw. Alaska Longspur. 



Of the series of thirty-three specimens of Lapland longspurs taken 

 at Fort Simpson in the spring of 190-1, twenty-four are referable to 

 this form. Most of the earlier birds taken, including most of those 

 collected April 25, were of this form; it far outnumbered the other 

 during the first three weeks of May, and one individual was taken 

 as late as May 27. The mixed flocks arrived on April 25, the birds 

 were common by May 1, and were last noted June 1. They fre- 

 quented the fields near the post, occasionally, when disturbed, settling 

 in trees or on fences, but after making a few long circuitous flights 

 usually alighting on the groimd in the same field, sometimes near 

 the place from which they had been startled. They were tame and 

 were surprisingly inconspicuous when motionless on the ground, 

 especially if it had been burned over. 



A large series of longspurs, including adults and young, taken by 

 Frank Kussell at Herschel Island. July 13 to August 13, 1894,^ and 

 now in the collection of the University of Iowa, has been examined, 

 and all of them prove referable to C. I. alascensis. 



Specimens recorded in the bird catalogue of the National Museum 

 from Fort Liard, Big Island. Fort Simpson, and Fort Good Hope 

 may best be referred to this form. 



Calcarius pictus (Swains.). Painted Longspur. 



This showy longspur passes northward through the Mackenzie 

 Valley in May, breeds abundantly in certain sections of the Barren 

 Grounds, and moves southward again in September. 



In 1903 I noted this bird only near our camp on Great Bear Lake 

 to the eastward of Leith Point, where I observed two or three indi- 



^ Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XIY, p. 441, 1891. 

 *Hist. N. A. Birds, Land Birds, I, p. 516, 1874. 

 *^ Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., XII, p. 583, 1888. 

 ^ Expl. in Far Nortb, p. 267, 1898. 



