310 THE QUESTIOX OF ACCLIMATISATION. 



appear to have any well-defined ideas what they 

 ought to do, and kept flying up and pitching 

 down again, and were manifestly restless and 

 excited perhaps rejected suitors contemplating 

 something desperate. The music to this eccen- 

 tric dance was the loud 'chuck-chuck' continu- 

 ously repeated, and the strange throbbing sound 

 produced by the vibrating wings. I saw several 

 balls after this, but in every one the same 

 series of strange evolutions were carried out. 



In reference to this bird's adaptability to accli- 

 matisation in our own country, it appears to me 

 to be most admirably fitted for our hill and 

 moorland districts. It is very hardy, capable of 

 bearing a temperature of 30 to 33 below zero; 

 feeds on seeds, berries, and vegetable matter 

 in every particular analogous to what it could 

 find in our own hill-country; a good breeder, 

 having usually from twelve to fourteen young at 

 a brood; nests early, and would come to shoot 

 about the same time as our own grouse. Snow 

 does not hurt them in the slightest degree ; they 

 burrow into it, and feed on what they can find 

 underneath it. The two specimens in the British 

 Museum I shot in the Colville valley; they are 

 male and female, in winter plumage ; and anyone, 

 who may feel an interest in getting these birds 



