BIRDS OF NORTH AND MIDDLE AMERICA HI 



Lagopus nttitus evermaniti Oberholser, Auk, xxxix, 1922, 247. — Peters, Clieck-list 

 Birds of World, ii, 1934, 2>Z (Attu Island). — Salomonsen, Moults and Sequence 

 of Plumage in Rock Ptarmigan, 1939, 10 (spec). — Hellmayr and Conover, 

 Cat. Birds Amer., i, No. 1, 1942, 208 (syn. ; descr.). — Clark, Smiths. War Back- 

 ground Stud. No. 21, 1945, 78 (list birds Aleutians). 



Lagopus rupcstris evcrmanni American Ornithologists' Union, Check-list, ed. 4, 

 1931, 84.— Bent, U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 162, 1932, 230 (habits, range). 



LAGOPUS MUTUS TOWNSENDI Elliot 



Townsend's Ptarmigan 



Adult male, summer plumage. — Forehead buffy white speckled and 

 mottled with fuscous-black ; crown, occiput, nape, scapulars, and inter- 

 scapulars between cinnamon-buff and clay color, each feather heavily 

 barred with wavy marks of .black and narrowly tipped with whitish ; the 

 feathers of the crown with the subterminal black area so wide it almost 

 hides the clay-colored parts ; back, rump, upper tail coverts, inner sec- 

 ondaries, and inner upper wing coverts tawny-olive (brightest on the 

 rump) finely banded (sometimes some of the feathers blotched) and 

 vermiculated with black and narrowly tipped with white, many of the 

 feathers of the back with a light grayish-olive tone instead of the more 

 frequent tawny-olive, giving a somewhat ashy sprinkling to the upper- 

 parts ; outer upper wing coverts, all the primaries, and all but the inner 

 secondaries pure white, the primaries with dusky shafts ; rectrices dark 

 clove brown, narrowly white basally and narrowly tipped with buffy white ; 

 lores blackish spotted with white (the tips of the feathers being white) ; 

 auricles and upper cheeks cinnamon-buff to clay color narrowly banded 

 with black and tipped with white ; chin and upper throat white ; lower 

 throat cinnamon-buff to clay color banded with black, the buffy inter- 

 spaces wider than the black marks ; breast tawny-olive more narrowly 

 banded with black, the bands and the interspaces nearly equal in width ; 

 sides and flanks similar but with the dark marks finer becoming mere 

 vermiculations ; abdomen, thighs, feathering of tarsi and toes, and under 

 wing coverts white ; under tail coverts tawny-olive barred with black ; 

 bill and claws black ; comb scarlet. 



Adult female, summer plumage. — Forehead and lores light ochraceous- 

 buff somewhat speckled with black ; crown, occiput, nape, scapulars, inter- 

 scapulars, back, rump, upper tail coverts, and all but the outer upper 

 wing coverts bright ochraceous-buff barred with black and the feathers 

 narrowly tipped with white or buffy white, the black marks being very 

 broad on the interscapulars and back and on the crown, much narrower 

 on the occiput, nape, upper wing and tail coverts, and rump ; the nape 

 is often somewhat tinged with pale ashy gray; outermost upper wing 

 coverts, primaries, and all but the innermost secondaries white, the pri- 

 maries with dusky shafts ; rectrices clove brown narrowly tipped with 

 whitish, and vermiculated with tawny-olive on the basal two-thirds or so 



