BIEDS. 141 



SO she showed the white (]uills leuuiiniiiy: from the white pluiuage 

 of winter. 



Her bill opened and her throat palpitated as if she were thirsty, as 

 she sat brooding the young, and I imagined that the last hours of 

 hatching high above water had been long and trying to the faithful 

 mother. But though water — clear cold mountain brooks — were be- 

 low, no need of her own could make her careless of her little ones. 

 Keeping up a motherly rhytlimic cluck-uk-uk^ cluck-uk-uk^ inter- 

 hirded with a variety of tender mother notes, she led them down by 

 almost imperceptible stages, slowly, gently, carefully, raising a furry 

 foot and sliding it along a little at a time, creeping low over the 

 ground with even tread, picking about as she went, while the little 

 toddlers gradually learned the use of their feet. Like a brood of 

 downy chickens, some were more yellowish, some browner than 

 others, but they all had dark lines on head and body giving them 

 a well-defined color pattern. Peeping like little chickens, while their 

 mother w^aited patiently for them, they toddled around, trying to 

 hop over tiny stones and saving themselves from going on their bills 

 by stretching out wee finny wings. As chickens just out of the shell 

 instinctively pick up food from the ground, they gave little jabs at 

 the fuzzy anthers of the dryas, little knowing that pollen was the 

 best food they could find, a rich protein food from which the bees 

 make bee bread -to feed their larvae. Did Nature teach them also to 

 find a starch as she does the bees, who add honey to bee bread to pro- 

 duce a balanced ration \ It would be interesting to determine. 



As we all made our way slowly down the slope, I watched Mr. 

 Bailey's descending figure on the opposite slope and when he reached 

 the pass, signaled for the camera. The addition of a second sym- 

 pathetic observer did not disturb the old mother ptarmigan, and she 

 allowed a large part of a film — most unfortunately spoiled by a drag- 

 ging shutter — to be taken at decreasing distances until within the 

 shortest possible focus. When one of the chicks was picked up by 

 Mr. Bailey it sat in his open hand unafraid and unnoted by its 

 mother, but when a second was reached for more obviously, she gave 

 a low hiss and drew her white wings down threateningly at her 

 sides, so, unwilling to trouble her, we hurriedly left ; but, on slipping 

 back in a few moments for a last look, found her composedly brood- 

 ing her little ones. 



The next day when Mr. Bailey went to look for mammals, T re- 

 turned to look for my ptarmigan. Thinking to find them where I 

 had left them or higher, I climbed up through the flower gardens to 

 the foot of the cliffs crowning the mountain, where four-footed moun- 

 taineers had climbed before me. From the foot of the cliffs on the 

 east. I looked down on the seamed face of Swiftcurrent Glacier. 

 51140°— 18 VI 



