112 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



spend more time feeding than Grouse, and this may be 

 due to the fact that the vegetation growing at the high 

 altitudes frequented has not the same powers of nutri- 

 ment as that of the lower-lying moors. 



There is, I suppose, no bird more fitted to withstand 

 a mountain snowstorm than the Ptarmigan, and as a 

 matter of fact an average snowfall leaves them unaffected, 

 provided there has been sufficient wind to blow some of 

 the more exposed feeding-grounds free of snow. Thus 

 an experience I had of the behaviour of the birds during 

 a blizzard of exceptional severity may be worth setting 

 down. 



I was anxious to study the Ptarmigan in their winter 

 surroundings, and for this purpose spent a week in a rough 

 bothy far up an outlying glen in one of the wildest parts 

 of the Highlands. The morning of the big storm broke 

 with a southerly wind, bringing with it heavy rain, and 

 there was nothing to give the least indication of what was 

 to follow except a very low barometer indeed. During 

 the morning the glass steadied, the wind shifted right 

 round to the north, and soft wet snow commenced to fall ; 

 but notwithstanding this, a mountaineering friend and I 

 set out for the Ptarmigan ground — a sheltered corrie at 

 an elevation of some 2500 feet above the sea. As we 

 reached the corrie the snow thickened and we could see 

 the drift being blown across the more exposed parts of 

 the hill in blinding clouds. The frost was now intense, 

 and our clothes were frozen stiff and so covered with ice 

 and snow that we must have been in close harmony with 

 our surroundings, for I was able to stalk a pack of Ptar- 

 migan to within a few feet without the birds being, so 

 far as could be seen, aware of my presence. As the storm 

 thickened, we began to realise that quite a migration of 

 Ptarmigan was taking place into our corrie. The birds 

 arrived on wing and on foot, those on the wing occasion- 



