54 THE RELATION OF &PARROW8 TO AciRICULTUKK 
out in the open plains without regard to the presence of trees or 
shrubs. In this way they accomplish work that would otherwise be 
left undone; tor most of the other members of the sparrow family 
thai subsist entirely, or nearly so, on weed seed in the winter will not 
be found far from convenient shelter to which they can repair in case 
of danger. 
LAPLAND LONGSPUR. 
(Calca /-ins lapponicu8.) 
The Lapland Longspur is another sparrow of the Arctic zone. Tt is 
called Longspur on account of the greal development of its hind claw, 
a feature characteristic of the snowflake, also, but to a slightly lesser 
degree. It ranges a little farther to the south in winter than the snow- 
flake, and resembles the Latter somewhal in its winter plumage of 
mixed brown, though the white-marked wings and tail of the snow- 
flake serve to distinguish it from the Longspur. 
Mi-. William Palmer states that the longspur of St. Paul Island 
(Calcarius lapponicus alasc&nsis) builds a grassy nest either on a 
slope or on the open tundra, in which 5 eggs are usually laid, lie 
collected 6 nestlings in whose stomachs was found, as in the stomachs 
of the young snowflakes of St. Paul Island, the red and black volcanic 
lava of which the island is composed. One of the longspur stomachs 
contained in addition a few fragments of the cuticle of small insects, 
but the others showed no tracts of anything but tin* lava. 1 
Of the winter habits considerably more is known. The birds come 
with the snowflakes in the autumn and go away with them in the 
spring. Like the snowflakes, they are protectively colored, strictly 
terrestrial, and highly gregarious. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway 
state, quoting Richardson, that longspurs rat grass seed, juniper 
berries, and the samaras of pines. 2 In his interesting account of the 
Lapland Longspur in 'Birds of Manitoba." Mr. Ernesl Seton Thomp- 
son speaks of seeing on the plains (locks of lens of thousands, and 
refers to 1 heir voices as a tornado of whistling. He states that in May 
these enormous flocks Uhh\ in newly sown grainnelds, and that the 
stomachs of the birds he shot contained oats, wheat, buckwheat, and 
grass seed. 3 Professor Aughey found that Longspurs, like the snow- 
flakes, bad fed on eggs of Pocky Mountain locusts.' 
The following details are based on the examinat ion of 1 L3 stomachs, 
collected from December to May, Inclusive, in the States of Wisconsin, 
Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas. The examinat ions, as 
1 For Seals and Pur-Seal Islands, part :;. p. 128, 1899. 
Elist. North American Birds, Vol. I. pp. 516 and 517, I s : i. 
Proc.U. S. Nat. Mas.. Vol. XIII. p. 590, L890 
• first Ann. Report Y . s. Entomological Commission, App. 11. i>. 29, L878. 
