UNGAVA PTARMIGAN 197 



were as conspicuous as the others, but when the flock was broken up, the birds 

 did not flush so readily, and I had a chance to study them at close range. They 

 ran over the ground the same as in August, evidently believing themselves 

 inconspicuous, and when closely pressed, crouched quail-like and depended upon 

 their " protective coloration." When the birds became scattered several climbed 

 into alders, about a foot from the ground, and sat hunched in some convenient 

 crotch, where they were more evident than ever. I was surprised to find straw- 

 berries still abundant here, hidden under the mosses in shady places, and each 

 of the specimens taken had its crop full. 



Doctor Grinnell (1909) quotes from Chase Little John's notebook 

 as follows : 



While searching for eggs of the glaucous-winged gull on one of the small 

 islands on the east side of Glacier Bay on July 14, I suddenly came upon a 

 flock of ptarmigan in a little opening among some spruce, hemlock, and 

 alders, which covered the ground in dense masses in spots; the remainder 

 of the area supported a thick growth of grass interspersed with patches of 

 moss and low-growing flowering plants. There were about eighteen birds 

 all told, young and old, and as near as I could determine there were four 

 or five old birds present. They would not fly after they were first flushed, but 

 kept dodging about on the ground, sheltered by the thick cover ; several times 

 I saw them, but so near that a shot would have ruined them as specimens. 



LAGOPUS LAGOPUS UNGAVUS Riley 



UNGAVA PTARMIGAN 



HABITS 



The ungavus race of the willow ptarmigan was described by 

 J. H. Kiley (1911) as " like Lagopus lagopus albus, but with a 

 heavier bill," based on a series of 20 birds collected at Fort Chimo, 

 Ungava, in the northwestern portion of the Labrador Peninsula. 

 He gives as its probable range " from Ungava and probably the 

 eastern shore of Hudson Bay south." Birds that I have seen from 

 the eastern and southern parts of the Labrador Peninsula do not 

 seem to have appreciably large bills. If this form is worthy of 

 recognition at all, which I very much doubt, it will probably prove 

 to be a northern race and perhaps identical with alascensis Swarth, 

 about which I have expressed my views elsewhere. But, pending 

 further investigation, we may as well consider all the willow ptar- 

 migan of the Labrador Peninsula as referable to this form. 



In this connection it might be well to consider what Lucien M. 

 Turner has to say, in his unpublished notes, concerning the great 

 degree of individual variation that he noted in the hundreds of 

 Ungava ptarmigan that he handled. He found a great " individual 

 variation in the size and shape of the head and beak." He collected 

 a large series of skulls and found them to vary from " 1.94 to 2.30 

 inches in length from occiput to tip of bill." He says that " the 



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