Ill] 



THE SXOW-BUXTING AND THE PTARmGAN'. 



101 



which makes the deeper impression because it is the only 

 true bird's song one hears in the highest north.^ 



On Spitzbergen there is sometimes to be met with in the 

 interior of the country, on the mountain slopes, a game bird, 

 spetsbergsriijciii, the rock ptarmigan {Layopas hyperbore^is, 

 Sund.). A nearly allied type occurs on the Taimur peninsula, 

 and along the whole north coast of Asia. It perhaps therefore 

 can scarcely be doubted that it is also to be found on ^ovaya 

 Zemlya, though we have not hi herto seen it there. On Spitz- 



PTAR-V.IGAN FELL 



Mussel Bay on Spitzbergen, after a photograph taken by A. Envall on the 21st June, 1S72. 



bergen this bird had only been found before 1872 in single 

 specimens, but in that year, to our glad surprise, we discovered 

 an actual ptarmigan-fell in the neighbourhood of our winter 

 colony, immediately south of the 80th degree of latitude. It 

 formed the haunt of probably a thousand birds ; at least a 

 couple of hundred were shot there in the course of the winter. 

 They probably breed there under stones in summer, and creep- 

 ing in among the stones pass the winter there, at certain seasons 

 doubtless in a kind of torpid state. 



^ There are, however, various other song-birds founfl already on south 

 Xovaya Zemlya, for instance, lappsparfven. the Lapland hnnXm^ {Ember lia 

 hipponica, L.), and berglaerkan, the shore-lark (Alauda alpestris, L.). They 

 hatch on the ground under bushes, tufts of grass, or stones, in very care- 

 t'ully constructed nests lined with cotton-grass and feathers, and are not 

 uncommon. 



