424 BRITISH BIRDS. 
TETRAO MUTUS. 
COMMON PTARMIGAN. 
(Piate 20.) 
Tetrao mutus, Montin, Physiogr. Sillsk. Handl. Lund, i. p. 155 (1776-86) ; et auc- 
torum plurimorum—( Gould), (Degland § Gerbe), (Dresser), (Saunders), &e. 
Tetrao lagopus, Linn. apud Lath, Gen. Syn. Suppl. i. p. 290 (1787). 
Lagopus mutus (Montin), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. Se. Brit. Mus. p. 27 (1816). 
Tetrao alpinus, Nils. Orn. Suec. i. p. 811 (1817). 
Lagopus vulgaris, Viedl. N. Dict. d’ Hist. Nat. xvii. p. 199 (1817). 
Tetrao montanus, Brehm, Lehrb. eur. Veg. i. p. 448 (1823). 
Attagen montanus (Brehm), Kaup, Syst. Nat. pp. 170-177 (1829). 
Lagopus montanus (Brehm), Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 516 (1831). 
Lagopus alpina (Mils.), Nils. Skand. Faun. ii. p. 98 (1835). 
Tetrao rupestris, Gel. apud Jenyns, Man. Brit. Vert. Anim. p. 171 (1835), 
Lagopus cinereus, Macgill. Hist. Brit. B. i. p. 187 (1887). 
The Common Ptarmigan is a bird of the tundra; and in the British 
Islands is confined to those moors in Scotland which lie above the limit 
of forest-growth. These localities are principally in the Highlands, and 
extend to the Outer Hebrides ; but the Ptarmigan breeds on the mountain- 
tops as far south as the island of Arran. Its reputed occurrences in Cum- 
berland and Wales appear to be myths. It does not occur on the Orkney 
or Shetland Islands. 
The Ptarmigan is a circumpolar bird, breeding on the tundras of Europe, 
Asia, and America, above the limit of forest-growth as far north as land 
extends, and in a similar climate at high elevations further south. In 
Europe, south of the Arctic circle, it breeds above the willow- and birch- 
regions in the Dovre fjeld, on the outskirts of perpetual snow in the 
Pyrenees, in the rhododendron region of the Alps, and on the Ural Moun- 
- tains wherever they rise too high for the growth of the willow and the 
birch. In Asia, besides frequenting the shores of the Arctic Ocean, it 
probably occurs on all the high mountain-ranges of Southern Siberia. 
Finsch obtained it in the Chinese Altai range at an elevation of 6000 feet ; 
Dybowsky and Radde found it on nearly all the mountain-ranges round 
Lake Baikal at an elevation of about 9000 feet; Captain Blakiston has 
sent me an example from the main island of Japan, obtained about 9250 
feet above the level of the sea; and Mr. Snow found it breeding on one 
of the northernmost of the Kurile Islands. In America it is found from 
Alaska to Greenland above the limit of forest-growth, and in the northern 
portion of the Rocky-Mountain chain as far south as lat. 55°. It is also 
found on Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla. 
