188 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



disposes of them and repeats the maneuver indefinitely, generally returning 

 home well laden. 



Ptarmigan are subject to great fluctuation in numbers from year 

 to year, and during periods of scarcity they may be nearly or quite 

 absent from regions where they were once abundant. Alfred M. 

 Bailey (1926) says: 



In 1919, ptarmigan were very scarce throughout the territory ; in December, 

 on a trip to within a short distance of the source of the Copper River, we saw 

 but one bird. In 1920 the birds began to return, and in 1921 they were reported 

 abundant at all points where they usually occur. I am unable to explain the 

 cause of this scarcity at intervals, for, so far as I know, no disease has been 

 reported among them. 



Mr. Warburton, who spent the summer of 1929 about the mouth 

 of the Yukon, writes to me : 



The scarcity of these birds was a great disappointment. I had expected to 

 find them as plentiful as I had seen them about Nome and Teller, Alaska, in 

 the summers of 1924 and 1925. At that time on the Seward Peninsula they 

 were most plentiful, together with many rock ptarmigan. This year the exact 

 reverse was true, at least about the Yukon mouth. 



Fall. — Turner (1886) says that the ptarmigan migrate to the in- 

 terior late in the fall. He writes : 



When the snow has pretty well covered the ground in late November the 

 Ptarmigans assemble in immense flocks, often numbering thousands. I was 

 once out on the higher grounds just south of the Crooked Canal. I ascended a 

 slight hill and came, unexpectedly, on one of these large flocks that covered acres 

 Df ground. I was among them before either was aware of it. They flew, and 

 made both the air and earth tremble. There must have been over five thousand 

 birds in this one flock. They flew beyond a neigbboring hill-range. Approach- 

 ing night and a heavy snow falling prevented me from following them. 



Winter. — When the snow covers the tundra so deeply that no food 

 or shelter can be found there, the ptarmigan are forced to migrate 

 into the interior valleys, river bottoms, and creek beds, where they 

 can find shelter among the willows, alders, or spruces and can feed 

 on the bugs and twigs of these trees or such berries and fruit as 

 still remain above the snow. They often congregate at that season, 

 and, particularly when migrating, in enormous numbers. Mr. 

 Brandt says that, where the railroad crosses the Continental Divide 

 in Alaska, he saw large flocks arising " like snow drifts in motion, 

 alongside the snorting engines, and whirling away over the great 

 white hills." 



In winter the ptarmigan's feet are thickly covered with long, 

 hairlike feathers, resembling the foot of a hare, which serve as snow- 

 Bhoes and enable the bird to walk on soft snow. Sandys (1904) 

 Writes : 



And Nature, as if realizing the perils of the ptarmigan asleep, has taught it 

 to plunge beneath the cold drifts to escape the cold, and to fly at, not walk t». 



