THE PTARMIGAN 119 



upper breast, and sides grey, finely mottled with black, 

 sometimes with buff. Throat barred with black and white. 

 Quills, outer wing coverts, and rest of under parts white. 

 The middle pair of tail feathers vary. In some birds 

 they are black, in others pure white, while again one may 

 be black, the other white. The adult female in autumn 

 plumage is similar to the male, but retains a few of the 

 buff and black feathers of the summer plumage. In both 

 male and female the feathers on the legs and toes are 

 moulted and renewed between June and September. The 

 claws are also shed. 



Winter plumage. — In the full winter plumage the male 

 and female are pure white, with the exception of the tail 

 feathers, which are black, often margined with white, and 

 a black patch extending from the eye to the upper mandible. 

 In the female this patch is either rudimentary or entirely 

 absent. In this state they are difficult to identify from 

 the Willow Grouse — which are so often sold as Ptarmigan 

 in this country, but the males of the species may be dis- 

 tinguished by the fact that the Ptarmigan has, as already 

 stated, a black patch in front of each eye. The central 

 tail feathers of the Ptarmigan are the only ones which 

 change colour with the seasons, the remainder being 

 constant black. 



The plumage of the young in the downy state is rusty 

 yellow with longitudinal markings and minute spots of 

 black ; the fii'st dress after that is black, mottled with 

 rusty yellow and white above, underneath pale rusty 

 brown with blackish wavy lines ; wings greyish brown. 

 Early in August the body plumage becomes greyish blue, 

 finely streaked with black, and the pinions white instead 

 of brown ; this grey plumage gradually becomes lighter as 

 in the old birds, and by November 1st they are difficult 

 to distinguish from their parents. 



It is in February that the first signs of summer plumage 



