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LAPLAND LONGSPUR. 
shorter than the second and third, which are longest. This 
species, in all its changeable dresses, may at once be known 
by its straight and very long hind nail, which is twice as long 
as the toe. The bill is also stronger and longer than in the 
other species. 
The longspurs are strictly Arctic birds, only descending in 
the most severe and snowy winters to less rigorous climates, 
and never to the temperate zone, except on the mountains. 
Hence they may, with the greatest propriety, be called snow 
birds. They frequent open countries, plains, and desert re- 
gions, never inhabiting forests. They run swiftly, advancing 
by successive steps like the larks, (which they resemble in 
habits, as well as in the form of their hind nail,) and not by 
hopping, like the buntings. The conformation of their wings 
also gives them superior powers of flight to their allied genera, 
the buntings and finches. Their moult appears to be double, 
and, notwithstanding Temminck’s and my own statement to 
the contrary, they differ much in their summer and winter 
plumage. Owing to this, the species have been thoughtlessly 
multiplied ; there are, in reality, but two, the present, and 
snow bunting of Wilson. 
The male Lapland longspur, in full breeding dress, is nearly 
seven inches long, and twelve and a quarter in extent ; the 
bill is nearly half an inch long, yellow, blackish at the point ; 
the irides are hazel, and the feet dusky ; the head is thickly 
furnished with feathers ; the forepart of the neck, throat, and 
the breast, are glossy black ; the hind-head is of a fine reddish 
rusty ; a white line arises from the base of the bill to the eye, 
behind which it becomes wider, descending on the sides of the 
neck somewhat round the breast; the belly and vent are 
white ; the flanks posteriorly with long blackish streaks ; the 
back and scapulars are brownish black, the feathers being 
skirted with rusty ; the smaller wing-coverts are blackish, 
margined with white ; the greater coverts margined with rufous, 
and white at tip, forming two white bands across the wings ; 
t;he primaries are blackish, edged with white ; secondaries 
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