290 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Sept. 



especially when the ground is covered with deep and light snow. 

 Their food consists chiefly of the buds and tender shoots of birch, 

 alder, black spruce (^Abies nigra), juniper (^Larix americana) , 

 &c., but they seem partial at other seasons to the partridge berry 

 (^Mitchella repens) and cranberry (^Oxy coccus 'palustris). I do 

 not possess specimens of willow grouse from Europe or northern 

 North America (Hudson's Bay, &c.), but Professor Baird says, 

 " I find a considerable difference in different specimens of the 

 large ptarmigan [L. albus] before me. Those from eastern 

 Labrador and Newfoundland appear to have decidedly broader, 

 stouter and more convex bills than those from the Hudson's Bay 

 and more northern countries. I think it not improbable that there 



may be two species " Professor Newton, however, informs 



me that " none of Professor Baird's later writings have gone to 

 strengthen the suspicion expressed by him formerly as to the 

 existence of a second species of willow grouse," and adds, " I 

 have compared a pretty good series of skins from many parts of 

 North America, extending from Alaska to Newfoundland, and so 

 far as I can judge I have no doubt they are all of one and the 

 same species, which is further identical with the willow grouse 

 of Europe (^Tetrao saUceti, Temminck; T, suhalpinus, Nilsson)." 

 I have never suceeeded in driving the willow^ grouse into a bank 

 of snow, as Sir John Richardson states in * Fauna Boreali Ame- 

 ricana,' vol. ii., p. 352, as ^being a habit peculiar to the species, 

 nor had the settlers observed anything of the kind. They are 

 sometimes so tame that they may be killed with a stick ; at other 

 times so wild that they will not allow you to approach within 

 gunshot, and such is generally the case in winter when the snow 

 is hard and crusty, and the noise of your rackets (snow-shoes) 

 alarms them. They are shot at all seasons by the settlers, and 

 generally when sitting on the ground although there is every 

 excuse for doing so, especially in thick woods, for if once flushed 

 there is rarely a chance of coming up with the covey again, and 

 this an important consideration where food and powder and shot 

 are not too plentiful among the poorer population. In one of my 

 walks soon after I landed on the island I came up with a small 

 covey of willow grouse and killed a brace, but owing to my dog — 

 a borrowed one, which was evidently more used to rushing into 

 the water for wounded seals and ducks, than retrieving grouse, — 

 I was unable to get another shot at the birds. Upon showing the 

 brace I had killed to the owner of the dog, on my return, the 



