356 TETRAONID^. 



so thickly covered with snow as to threaten it with starva- 

 tion does it repair to districts where the cold is somewhat 

 mitigated, but never lower into the valleys than where it 

 may quench its thirst with snow. " The male bird," says 

 a field naturalist, " has been seen, during a snow-storm in 

 Norway, to perch himself on a rock which overtopped 

 the rest, and to sit there for some time as if enjoying the 

 cold wind and sleet, which was drifting in his face ; just 

 as one might have done on a sultry summer's day on the 

 top of the Wiltshire downs, when a cool air was stirring 

 there." * The same writer observes : " I have generally 

 found the Ptarmigan concealed among the grey, lichen- 

 coloured rocks* on the summits of the fjelds, and so closely 

 do they resemble these rocks in colour that I could scarcely 

 ever see them on the ground ; and sometimes when the 

 practised eye of my guide found them, and he would 

 point out the exact spot, it was not until after a long 

 scrutiny that I could distinguish the bird within a dozen 

 yards of me. Frequently we would find them on the 

 snow itself, and many a time has a large circular depression 

 in the snow been pointed out to me, where the Ptarmigan 

 has been lying and pluming himself in his chilly bed. He 

 is a noble bird, free as air, and for the most part uninter- 

 rupted in his wide domain ; he can range over the enormous 

 tracts of fjeld, seldom roused by a human step, and still 

 more seldom hunted by man. When the winter clothes 

 his dwelling in a garb of snow, he arrays himself in the 

 purest and most beautiful white; when the summer 

 sun melts away the snow, and the grey rocks appear, 

 he, too, puts on his coloured dress, and assimilates himself 

 once more to his beloved rocks. But the young Ptarmigans 

 are my especial favcarites : I have caught them of all ages ; 

 some apparently just emerged from the egg, others some 

 weeks older ; they are remarkably pretty little birds, with 

 their short black beaks and their feathered toes ; and so 



* Rev. A. C. Smitb, in the Zoologist, vol. viii. p. 2977. 



