lO 



GAME-BIRDS 



the female. The genus Laj:;flpus, it ma}- be mentioned in this place, 

 has a much wider ideographical range than Tetrao, being, in fact, 

 circumpolar ; two of its representatives, namely, the willow-grouse 

 {L. albus) and the rock-ptarmigan ( L. rupestris^ being common to the 

 northern parts of both hemispheres. 



The ptarmigan differs from the grouse not onl\' in its inferior 

 size — measuring not more than 14^ inches in length — but by 

 its white quill-feathers, although in immature birds the shafts of 

 these feathers are blackish brown. Like grouse, ptarmigan varj' in the 

 tone of their colouring, and no less than three distinct plumages are 



assumed during the 

 ^T' '^B^^ "^ \'ear. In summer the 

 cock has the upper-parts 

 and flanks dark brown 

 mottled and barred with 

 gre}'ish brown ; the tail- 

 feathers black tipped 

 with white, and the 

 abdomen white ; while 

 the hen is black varie- 

 gated with rufous buff 

 above and rufous buff 

 barred with black below. 

 In autumn the upper- 

 parts, breast, and flanks 

 are grey mottled with 

 black, and the undcr- 

 parts white ; in winter 

 the whole plumage — 

 c.\ce[)t the tail-feathers (barring the middle pair, and a black patch in 

 front of the eye in the cock), which are black — turns white. The 

 chick resembles that of the grouse, but is more chestnut in tone, with 

 the patch on the crown paler in the centre. 



Ptarmigan inhabit the higher zones of the Alps and Pxrcnees as 

 well as the more northern European mountain-ranges, extending east- 

 wards into the Urals, and probably the Altai and some of the other 

 Central Asian chains as far as Lake Baikal. In Iceland the genus 

 is represented by a race of the rock-ptarmigan v.hich has been named 

 L. rupestris isinndorinii. In the British Islands the ptarmigan is re- 

 stricted to the mountains of Scotland and some of the neighbouring 

 islands, its reported former occurrence in Cumberland and Wales being 



HO WARD STUDU 



I'TARMIGAN : COCK IN WTNTKK, 



