AUTUMN ON THE MOORS 187 



which, all through the summer, have lain comparatively 

 lifeless and uninteresting, now, from mid-August onwards, 

 teem with wild bird-life — and that, too, in some of its most 

 graceful and attractive forms. 



By September, the brief, bright, Arctic summer is over. 

 The "midnight sun," to use the tourist phrase, has set; 

 and now, as ice gradually envelops the Polar archipelago 

 and North Asiatic seaboard, the feathered world — with 

 one notable exception — is in full flight to the southward. 

 They travel in battalions, or in handfuls ; some move 

 slowly and reluctantly, resisting foot by foot the advance 

 of winter, while others span the world without rest or 

 effort. The curlew-sandpiper, as an example, passes from 

 Arctic through tropic within a few weeks — more probably, 

 days — and by exchanging hemispheres at each equinox, 

 practically eliminates the element of winter from its little 

 life. 



Curlew-sandpipers, with many congeneric species, pass 

 down the north-east coast during September. But we are 

 not here concerned with the coast, as that will be treated 

 in detail in the second part of this book, so we now return 

 to the moorland. 



I mentioned a single exception to the general autumnal 

 exodus from the far north. That exception is not without 

 interest reflecting indirectly on moorland ornithology, 

 inasmuch as it is the grouse- — the father of all the grouse. 

 That species, the Spitsbergen grouse [Lagoptis hemileu- 

 curus), is generally spoken of by Arctic whalers, and by 

 the few travellers who have ever seen it, as a ptarmigan. 

 But that is not correct. The author, being one of the few 

 ornithologists who have seen and shot this bird, regards 

 it as no ptarmigan, but a true grouse. Its note cor- 

 responds with that of our own Lagopus scoticus, whereas 



