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Though the Red Grouse does not, after the manner of other 
members of the genus Lagopus, become white in winter, Scotland 
possesses a species of the genus which does. This is the Prar- 
MIGAN,! LZ. mutus or L. alpinus, which differs far more in structure, 
station, and habits from the Red Grouse than that does from the 
Willow-Grouse, and in Scotland is far less abundant, haunting only 
the highest and most barren mountains. It is said to have for- 
merly inhabited both Wales and England, but there is no evidence 
of its appearance in Ireland. On the continent of Europe it is 
found most numerously in Norway, but at an elevation far above 
\ SN Ss =< == NS 
PTARMIGAN 
the growth of trees, and it occurs on the Pyrenees, and on the 
Alps. It also inhabits northern Russia, but its eastern limit is 
1 James I. (as quoted by Mr. Gray, B. W. Scotland, p. 230) writing from 
Whitehall in 1617 spelt the word ‘‘ Termigant,”’ and in this form it appears in 
one of the Scots Acts in 1621. Taylor the ‘‘ water poet,” who (in 1630) seems 
to have been the first Englishman to use the word, has ‘‘Termagant.’’ How the 
unnecessary initial letter has crept into the name is more than is known to me. 
I can only trace it to Sibbald in 1684. The word is admittedly from the Gaelic 
Tarmachan, meaning, according to some, ‘‘a dweller upon heights,” but 
thought by Dr. T. M‘Lauchlan to refer possibly to the noise made by the bird’s 
wings in taking flight. It has of course really nothing to do with the name of 
the idol which early medieval writers supposed to be worshipped by Pagans. 
