THE PTARMIGAN 217 
When disturbed they separate in all directions, crouch on the ground, 
Squeeze between objects that seem to defy all passage, work their 
way through the cover, or, if they fancy that an eye is fixed on them, 
lie as motionless as stones When so far grown as to be able to 
fly, they still prefer the shelter afforded by the cover; but if hard 
pressed the old cock usually rises first, with a cry which some com- 
pare to the quack of a Duck. The hen and young birds show no 
hurry in following his example, but take wing singly, and at unequal 
intervals—not like Partridges, which always rise in a covey. This 
is the period when they afford the easiest shot to the sportsman, 
who often puts them up almost beneath his feet, or under the very 
nose of his dogs. Later in the season a great change takes place, 
and this, it is said, whether the birds have been much harassed or 
not. Become cautious and wild, they no longer trust to conceal- 
ment or swiftness of foot, but, discovering from a great distance 
the approach of danger, they rise most frequently out of shot, so 
that it requires skill and patience to get near them. A slight and 
early snow sometimes makes it more easy to approach them, at 
least for a few hours; but ordinarily, not even extreme cold, or 
a covering of snow a foot thick, appears to tame them at all. Under 
such circumstances, they collect in enormous ‘packs’, and betake 
themselves to some particular part of the moor from which the 
snow has been more or less drifted. These packs keep together 
during winter, and at the beginning of spring separate and pair, 
not, however, without some previous altercations; but these are 
soon over, and they lose much of their shyness, venturing close to 
the roads, and being little disturbed by the passage of the traveller. 
THE PTARMIGAN 
LAGOPUS MUTUS 
Winter plumage—pure white, a black line from the angle of the beak through 
the eye; outer tail-feathers black; above the eyes a scarlet fringed 
membrane; bill and claws black; tarsi and toes thickly clothed with 
woolly feathers, Female—without the black line through the eyes. 
Summer plumage—wings, under tail-coverts, two middle tail-feathers, 
and legs white; outer tail-feathers black, some of them tipped with 
white ; rest of plumage ash-brown, marked with black lines and dusky 
spots. Length fifteeninches. Eggs reddish yellow, spotted and speckled 
with deep reddish brown. 
Tuis beautiful bird is the Schneehuhn, ‘ Snow-chick’, of the Ger- 
mans, the White Partridge of the Alps and Pyrenees, and the Gaelic 
Tarmachan. Whilst most birds shrink from cold, the Ptarmigan, 
on the contrary, seems to revel in it, and to fear nothing so much 
as the beams of the sun. Not even when the valleys rejoice in the 
livery of spring does it desert the snowy regions altogether, and, 
when the mist-wreaths clear away, it avoids the rays of the sun by 
