THE PTARMIGAN 



(Tetrao mutus) 



Along yon moorland brown with heather bells, 



There swarms the honey-bee and sings the lark ; 

 While Grouse which summer saw burst from their shells, 



Rough-footed run o'er knowes where moss-bees build their cells. 



The Ptarmigan is another of our rarer birds, and one that 

 is extremely local in its distribution, being confined to the 

 wild northern uplands. Yon distant mountain tops, where 

 here and there the snow still lies in the sheltered hollows, 

 even in June, do not look likely to repay the ornithologist for 

 his exertions in reaching them. But these lofty hills capped 

 with cloud, all glowing in sunlight or frowning in shadow, are 

 the home of the Golden Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the 

 Merlin, the Dotterel, and the Ptarmigan. We must leave the 

 lowlands far behind us, cross the sloping moors, where the 

 Red Grouse lives amongst the heath, and climb up the hills 

 to their highest summits before we can expect to meet with 

 the Ptarmigan. The scene up here is wild and barren and 

 desolate in the extreme. The silence of the mountain tops 

 is most impressive. The flat ground is thickly strewn with 

 loose stones and large boulders, but in all the sheltered nooks 

 the bilberry and other ground fruits abound, and in many 

 places patches of scrubby heather find a precarious root. 

 Behind the big rocks, and in the hollows where no sunlight 

 penetrates, snow of dazzling whiteness covers the ground, pure 



11 



