u 



THE MOT^NTAINEER. 



THE OIiYM: 



summer garments are intended to 

 harmonize with lichen-covered rocks 

 and heather-beds, and this they do 

 admirably, especially in the case of 

 the female, which is heavily and uni- 

 formly clad in neutral browns and 

 grays in a finely mottled pattern. 



The guilelessness of the Ptarmigan 

 is proverbial. A sitting female may 

 be handled on the nest, and a com- 

 pany of them one may sometimes 

 drive before him like over-petted 

 hens. The males, being less confi- 

 dent of their protective coloration, 

 are usually somewhat more wary, 

 and are sometimes, to your great as- 

 tonishment, excessively wild. One 

 sighted upon Wright's Peak at fifty 

 yards squawked in an agony of ap- 

 prehension and fled for further or- 

 ders, although it is entirely probable 

 that he had never seen a human be- 

 ing before. 



Two broods are raised in one sea- 

 son by these industrious fowls, the 

 care of the first being apparently en- 

 trusted to the cock, while the hen 

 busies herself with the second nest- 

 ing. Once as I was treading the 

 heather of a mile-high spur in a sort 

 of ecstasy of mountain rapture, a 

 mother Ptarmigan dashed up into 

 my face in a most dream-shattering 

 fashion. Good cause for alarm tho. 

 I was near stepping on some of her 

 chicks. Never did a mother conduct 



a more gallant retreat, for while 

 brood number one exploded like 

 feathered bombs and reassembled to 

 the father's call, she shrieked her 

 rage from a nearby rock or dashed 

 at my face repeatedly, in very act to 

 consume me. and thus make time for 

 the fledglings of brood number two, 

 just hatched, to scuttle off thru the 

 heather. One of the youngest chicks 

 I caught in my hand, whereupon the 

 mother bird made such a furious on- 

 slaught that I was obliged to defend 

 myself with my left. I did not hurt 

 her, but I speedily let the youngster 

 go for fear I should have to. Such 

 spirit I never saw before ! Her cause 

 was undoubtedly just ; but Avhat if a 

 hen were as big as a man ! 



The American Pipit (Anthus pen- 

 silvanicus) keeps to the flower- 

 sprinkled meadows, or follows hard 

 upon the retreating snow. We know 

 him upon the lowlands, a trim little 

 figure not so large as a Song Spar- 

 row, grayish brown above and tawny 

 buff below, with sharp dusky 

 streaks on throat and breast. But 

 the neatness of his figure is compro- 

 mised by the wayw^ardness and irres- 

 olution of his movements. When 

 "at rest" the Pipits keep tilting the 

 body and wagging the tail most in- 

 consequently, while in social flight 

 they straggle out far apart, so as to 

 allow plenty of room for the chronic 



