THE PTARMIGAN 103 



There is no doubt that Ptarmigan are often compelled 

 to deposit their eggs on the surface of the snow when a 

 storm descends on the hills during the nesting season; 

 and I have found eggs lying deserted, with no nest in the 

 vicinity, which were most probably laid under these 

 conditions. Last season a Ptarmigan's egg was dis- 

 covered laid on the top of a moss-grown boulder. 



I think that the most interesting event in my ornitho- 

 logical career was the finding of my first Ptarmigan's nest 

 nearly ten years ago. The ambition of finding such a 

 nest had long occupied my mind, but a number of searches 

 in Ptarmigan country had resulted in nothing more definite 

 than the flushing of cock birds and barren pairs, and as 

 none of the stalkers with whom I had spoken on the sub- 

 ject had ever found a nest themselves — their work does 

 not take them to the high tops during the nesting season — 

 I had begun to despair of ever fulfilling this ambition of 

 mine. 



On the eventful day I started out from the low ground 

 in the early morning of a certain 27'th of May. The 

 weather was magnificent. Not a breath of wind, with 

 the sun shining from an unclouded sky. My way led 

 me first past a birch wood, where, even at this late season, 

 few of the trees had begun to put forth their leaves, then, 

 leaving the last stunted veteran behind, I reached the 

 open moorland — first the home of the Grouse and then 

 of the bird whose nest I was so anxious to locate. The 

 first cock Ptarmigan flushed on the watershed about 

 3000 feet above sea-level, flew strongly off, but the second 

 took wing with reluctance, and after crossing a small snow- 

 filled gully a few yards away, seemed to me to hesitate 

 above a stone-covered part of the hill. This led me to 

 search the vicinity with extreme care, and, to my intense 

 gratification, a hen Ptarmigan fluttered from her nest 

 almost at the exact spot where the cock had hesitated in 



