(_Calcarius pictus_) Finch family
_Length_--6.5 inches. About the size of a large English sparrow.
_Male and Female_--Upper parts marked with black, brown, and
white, like a sparrow; brown predominant. Male bird with more
black about head, shoulders, and tail feathers, and a whitish
patch, edged with black, under the eye. Underneath pale brown,
shading to buff. Hind claw or spur conspicuous.
_Range_--Interior of North America, from the arctic coast to
Illinois and Texas.
_Migrations_--Winter visitor. Without fixed season.
Confined to a narrower range than the Lapland longspur, this bird,
quite commonly found on the open prairie districts of the middle West
in winter, is, nevertheless, so very like its cousin that the same
description of their habits might very well answer for both. Indeed,
both these birds are often seen in the same flock. Larks and the
ubiquitous sparrows, too, intermingle with them with the familiarity
that only the starvation rations of midwinter, and not true
sociability, can effect; and, looking out upon such a heterogeneous
flock of brown birds as they are feeding together on the frozen
ground, only the trained field ornithologist would find it easy to
point out the painted longspurs.
Certain peculiarities are noticeable, however. Longspurs squat while
resting; then, when flushed, they run quickly and lightly, and "rise
with a sharp click, repeated several times in quick succession, and
move with an easy, undulating motion for a short distance, when they
alight very suddenly, seeming to fall perpendicularly several feet to
the ground." Another peculiarity of their flight is their habit of
flying about in circles, to and fro, keeping up a constant chirping or
call. It is only in the mating season, when we rarely hear them, that
the longspurs have the angelic manner of singing as they fly, like the
skylark. The colors of the males, among the several longspurs, may
differ widely, but the indistinctly marked females are so like each
other that only their mates, perhaps, could tell them apart.