Identifier: birdlore15noas (find matches)
Title: Bird-lore
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals
Subjects: Birds -- Periodicals Birds -- Conservation Periodicals
Publisher: New York, National Association of Audubon Societies
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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coloring matter. There is considerableindividual variation in color, due to a greater or less intensity rather than toany change in pattern. During the last days of April or first of May, they arrive at St. Michael,on the coast of Bering Sea, and are known to reach southern Greenland atabout the same time. Murdock tells us that they are abundant in summerat Point Barrow, where they arrive about May 20. The first eggs are laid thereby the beginning of June, and they migrate southward the last of August orfirst of September. On the western Aleutian Islands, Dall found them to beabundant summer residents, and discovered a nest with four much-incubatedeggs June 18. They leave these islands in winter, and I may add that I donot know of a winter record from any part of Alaska. During the summer of 1881, I found them nesting on St. Lawrence Island,in northern Bering Sea, on both sides of Bering Strait, but saw no traceof them on Wrangel and Herald Islands. They are well known and abun- (202)
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The Alaska Longspun 203 dant on the Fur Seal Islands, where they are the most beautiful songstersamong the limited number of land birds summering there. They winterthrough parts of central Europe and middle Asia to Japan, and through themiddle northern United States, mainly from the Great Lakes to Oregon andWashington, and sometimes ranging to Texas. Early in May, the tundra on the Alaskan coast of Bering Sea is still mostlycovered with snow, except in grassy spots on southern exposures and otherfavorably situated places. Here the first male Longspurs suddenly appearin all the beauty of their summer dress. At this season, the males are beautifulbirds, the head and breast being jet-black with white or buffy stripes back ofthe eyes, the back of the neck bright rufous, and the back streaked with blackand brownish. The females, as usual among birds, are more obscurely marked,and reach the breeding-ground a little later than the males. They arriveon the coast of Norton Sound in flocks and

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