Plate 39
McCown’s Bunting
Plectrophanes McCownii (Lawrence)
The spring migration is confined to birds that pass the winter in the South, in many cases not beyond the limits of the United States; but there are birds that extend their journey to the islands of the West Indies, to Mexico, and to Central America, and in some instances to South America. Many of the Warblers, several of our common Thrushes and Finches, and various others of our well-known North American species, visit Cuba and Jamaica in the course of the winter, and in both those islands some of them make their appearance while yet the season is not so far advanced in the United States as to incommode them either by the cold or an abridged supply of their favorite food.
The migration of these birds is a curious problem, and regulated by laws entirely independent of the considerations of climate and supply of food. One cannot readily find a reason why a bird that has passed the winter in a tropical or southern latitude, should leave for the North at the coming of spring, when a more plentiful supply of food than has sufficed for its winter support is about to be presented. And then, too, why should birds proceed so far to the North?—to the very confines of the Arctic circle, as many small species do, when the great forests of the middle and northern States offer ample accommodation, and supplies of food certainly equal to those in which they will at last terminate their journey. There are questions here difficult to answer. It would appear that the existence of an animal is predicated on its performance of certain functions antecedently involved in its organization. That its entire history, we may say, is but an answer to the calls of organization. That the organization and the performance of its indicated functions are strictly exponents of each other, the latter modified by circumstances, and the relations of species to each other, dependent in some measure on circumstances, but not produced by them, no more than forms or other physical characters. No feature in the history of an animal is absolutely produced by circumstances. There is, too, the consideration of inherited instincts, and if the faculty of memory, and impressions on it, are transmissible, nearly the whole phenomena of instinct may be explained.
In the western and southwestern countries of North America, within the limits of the United States, various species of northern birds appear in winter that have never been noticed on the Atlantic seaboard. The handsome little bird that we present to the reader in the plate now before him, is one of that description. It appears to be a native of the extensive and little-known regions of northwestern America, migrating in the winter to California, New Mexico, and Texas, where it has been seen by several of our naturalists.
There are several species in Western America of the group to which this bird belongs, all characterized by agreeable and somewhat similar colors. In the States on the Atlantic, the Snow Bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis) is their only relative that is of usual occurrence,—though another, the Lapland Longspur (Plectrophanes Lapponica), occasionally appears, and of the capture of which, in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, several instances have come to our knowledge.
Capt. McCown, who discovered this present species in Texas, gives no further account of it than that he shot it in company with a flock of Shore Larks. His notice is in the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, VI. p. 14. Dr. Henry has obtained it in the vicinity of Fort Thorne, New Mexico. These, with Dr. Heermann, are the only naturalists that have as yet noticed this bird in its native wilds.
During the survey for a route for a railroad to the Pacific, by Lieut. Williamson’s party, to which Dr. Heermann was attached, he met with this bird in large numbers, and his collection contains numerous specimens in various stages of plumage. From these we have selected adults of both sexes, from which the plate now before the reader has been prepared. In Dr. Heermann’s manuscripts, kindly placed at our disposal for the purposes of our present work, we find this bird thus noticed:—
“I found this species congregated in large flocks with the chestnut-collared Lark Bunting (Plectrophanes ornatus), and engaged in gleaning the seeds from the scanty grass on the vast arid plains of New Mexico. Insects and berries also form part of their food, in search of which they show considerable activity, running on the ground with ease and celerity.
“We found this bird, as well as various other species, particularly abundant whenever we struck on the isolated water-holes that occur in this region, these being the only spots for miles around where water can be obtained. When fired at, or otherwise alarmed, they rise as if to fly away, but seem to be irresistibly impelled by thirst to return to the only localities where relief is to be obtained, and where, if the hunter is so inclined, large numbers of this handsome little bird, and others, may be slaughtered with little exertion.