144 GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
remonstrance. Both parents are very devoted to, and 
solicitous for, their young, and will permit anyone to 
come very near, indeed almost touch them, when they are 
accompanied by their chicks. The hen sits very close 
during incubation, leaving the nest only for short inter- 
vals, and so unwilling is she to desert her treasures that 
she will permit herself almost to be trodden upon, and 
frequently she has allowed herself to be captured by 
hand rather than secure her own safety by flight. Be- 
fore incubation is finished, she becomes quite denuded 
of feathers on the abdomen. The young are pretty 
creatures, very captivating, as are all chicks, and have a 
downy dress of greenish buff or sulphur yellow, deco- 
rated with chestnut and black. When they are half 
grown they begin to fly, but do not attain their full size 
until late in the autumn. 
Ptarmigan, as it appears to me, are in a constant state 
of moult; and I have rarely seen a specimen that did not 
have pin-feathers on some part of its body, no matter at 
what period of the year it was killed. The assumption 
of the summer plumage commences on the neck, where a 
few colored feathers appear, and the birds, during the 
transition from the pure white winter garb to the bright 
summer dress, present a curious piebald and mottled ap- 
pearance. They do not all moult at the same time, some 
assuming the complete nuptial dress considerably before 
the rest, and it is difficult to determine whether one sex 
is in advance of the other in moulting, and if so, which 
one it is. The cold rains and damp heavy fogs and mists, 
so prevalent in the regions frequented by these birds, 
cause the death of numbers of the young, to whom a 
complete wetting is usually fatal, and many also perish 
at the loss of the old birds, which have met their fate 
either by gun or snare, when the little creatures were too 
