200 LAGOPUS CINEREUS. 



ciy of ca frog, you may pass through a flock of ptarmigans with- 

 out observing a single individual, although some of them may 

 not be ten yards distant. When squatted, however, they utter 

 no sound, their object being to conceal themselves ; and if you 

 discover the one from which the cry has proceeded, you gene- 

 rally find him on the top of a stone, ready to spring off the 

 moment you shew an indication of hostility. If you throw a 

 stone at him, he rises, utters his call, and is immediately joined 

 by all the individuals around, which, to your surprise, if it be 

 your first rencontre, you see spring up one by one from the bare 

 ground. They generally fly ofl" in a loose body, with a direct 

 and moderately rapid flight, resembling, but lighter than, that 

 of the Brown Ptarmigan, and settle on a distant part of the 

 mountain, or betake themselves to one of the neishbourinsr 

 summits, perhaps more than a mile distant. 



On reaching the top of the hill, near which I observed a soli- 

 tary specimen, still in flower, of Statice Armeria, I found it to 

 be a long, broad, rounded ridge, covered w^ith stones, gradually 

 sloping to the west, but on the eastern side suddenly ter- 

 minated by a magnificent precipice, several hundred feet 

 high, and at least half a mile in length. The scene that now 

 presented itself to my view was the most splendid that I had 

 then seen. All around rose mountains beyond mountains, 

 Avhose granitic ridges, rugged and tempest-beaten, furrowed 

 by deep ravines M^orn by the torrents, gradually became dim- 

 mer as they receded, until at length on the verge of the horizon 

 they were blended with the clouds, or stood abrupt against the 

 clear sky. A solemn stillness pervaded all nature ; no living 

 creature was to be seen ; the dusky wreaths of vapour rolled 

 majestically over the dark A'alleys, and clung to the craggy 

 summits of the everlasting hills. A melancholy, pleasing, in- 

 comprehensible feeling creeps over the soul when the lone wan- 

 derer contemplates the vast, the solemn, the solitary scene, 

 over which savage grandeur and sterility preside. How 

 glorious to live in those vast solitudes, a hunter of the red 

 deer and the forest boar, in the times of old, when the pine 

 woods covered all those long and winding valleys, now strewn 

 with decayed trunks, or bare as the hill-tops around. 



