LAPLAND LONGSPUR. 
305 
unsettled parts of Maine, Michigan, and the Northwestern 
Territories. Large flocks also at times enter the Union, and 
contrary to their usual practice of resting and living wholly on 
the ground, occasionally alight on trees. They leave the colder 
Arctic deserts in the autumn, and are found around Hudson 
Bay on their way to the South in winter, not making their 
appearance there before November. Near Severn River they 
haunt the cedar-trees, upon whose berries they now princi- 
pally feed. They live in large flocks, and are so gregarious 
that when separated from their own species, or in small par- 
ties, they usually, in Europe, associate with the common Larks, 
or, in America, they join the roving bands of Snow Birds. In 
the fur countries they extend their migrations in the spring as 
far as the 6sth parallel, where they were seen about Fort 
Franklin by the beginning of May ; at this time they fed much 
upon the seeds of the Alpine arbutus. They feed principally 
on seeds, and also on grass, leaves, buds, and insects. They 
breed on small hillocks, among moss and stones, in open 
marshy fields, and the nest is thickly and loosely constructed 
of moss and grass, and lined with a few feathers and deer’s 
hair. The Longspur, like the Lark, sings only as it rises in 
the air, in which, suspended aloft, it utters a few agreeable and 
melodious notes. 
The Longspur occurs in winter in South Carolina, Kentucky, 
and Kansas, though it is not common south of about 40°. 
Of its song Mr. Hagerup writes to me : “ It sounds best when 
the bird, after mounting up in the sky, drops slowly to the earth 
with extended wings. The song is not very long, but has a sweet, 
flute-like tone, and though the melody is attractive, it is almost mel- 
ancholy in its wild plaintiveness, — as, indeed, all the notes of this 
species are.” 
Note. — One example of the Chestnut-collared Longspur 
{Calcarins ornaius) was captured in Massachusetts in tSyb. The 
usual range of this bird is limited to the Central Plains, — from 
Texas to the Saskatchewan. 
Smith's Longspur {Calcarins piculs')^ which occurs in the in- 
terior, — breeding from the Great Slave Lake district to the Arctic 
Ocean, — is found, in winter, in Illinois. 
VOL. I. — 20 
