WILLOW PTAEMIGAN 187 



Game. — Were its haunts not so far removed from the centers of 

 civilization, the willow ptarmigan would be a popular game bird. 

 Our experience with the Aleutian ptarmigan taught us that these 

 birds possess excellent game qualities. Except during the breeding 

 season, when they are very tame, they are wild and wary enough 

 to give good sport. Their flight is strong and swift and sufficiently 

 prolonged to give one all the exercise he wants. Their thick winter 

 plumage is somewhat shot resisting, so that they have to be hard hit, 

 with a close-shooting gun; it often requires considerable chasing to 

 get within effective range. Edwyn Sandys (1904) gives a thrilling 

 account of a winter ptarmigan hunt, with its hardships and dangers. 

 The flesh of the old birds in winter is apt to be dark and dry and to 

 have a bitter flavor, as a result of a steady diet of willow buds, but 

 that of 3 7 oung birds in fall, fed on fresh foliage, berries, and insects, 

 is lighter colored and very good to eat. 



Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) writes: 



Among the Alaskan natives, both Eskimo and Indian, especially those in 

 the northern two-thirds of the Territory, this bird is one of the most important 

 sources of food supply, and through the entire winter it is snared and shot in 

 great abundance, and many times it is the only defense they possess against 

 the ever-recurring periods of scarcity and famine. 



The Eskimo of the Kaviak Peninsula have a curious way of taking advantage 

 of the peculiarities of this bird in their migrating season. Taking a long 

 and medium fine-meshed fishing-net they spread it by fastening cross-pieces to 

 it at certain distances ; then taking their places just at sunset in early Novem- 

 ber or the last of October, on a low open valley or " swale," extending north 

 and south, they stretch the net across the middle of this highway, with a man 

 and sometimes two at each cross-piece, while the women and children conceal 

 themselves behind the neighboring clumps of bushes. As twilight advances the 

 not is raised and held upright. Ere long the flocks of Ptarmigan are seen ap- 

 proaching skimming along close to the snow-covered earth in the dim twilight, 

 and a moment later, as the first birds come in contact with the obstacle, the 

 men press the net down upon the snow sometimes securing 50 to 60 birds. 

 While the men throw themselves upon the net and hold it down, the women 

 and children rush forward and kill the birds by wringing their necks or by 

 biting their heads. On some evenings several flocks are thus intercepted, and 

 the party of natives return to their houses heavily laden with spoils. In winter 

 the birds are snared in their haunts by placing fine nooses attached to low 

 bushes close to the ground. Sometimes small brush fences are built with 

 snares at the passage-ways purposely left open. In spring, as the snow begins 

 to leave the mossy knolls here and there, the natives shoot a male bird and 

 stuff it roughly with straw, and, mounting it on a small stake, place this effigy 

 upon one of the bare knolls in a conspicuous position ; then they surround it 

 with a fine sinew net held in place by slender stakes. The hunter then con- 

 ceals himself close by and imitates the challenge cry of the male. All around 

 can be heard the loud cries of the pugnacious birds, and attracted by the decoy 

 notes of the native some of them are almost certain to bestow their attention 

 upon the decoy ; they approach swiftly, and either fly directly at their supposed 

 rival or alight and run at him in blind rage. In either case their jealously is 

 fatal, as they are at once hopelessly entangled in the net <>f the hunter, who 



