52 238 



By the 21st July the young birds had attained the size of a 

 hazel-hen. 



For the rest, this species is pretty evenly distributed throughout 

 the whole of Finmark, in every spot where a growth of birch or 

 willows is to be found. In the extreme north — every vestige of 

 arboreous vegetation having vanished — its absence is supplied 

 by L. alpinus. 



Perhaps nearly half a million individuals of both species are 

 aonually shot and snared in Norway, three-fourths of the number 

 belonging to L. albus. 



A very interesting and curious variety of the common grouse 

 in winter dress, I am just enabled to describe. It was purchased 

 by the Museum of the University in March 187.3, having been 

 snared among the normal L. albus in Thelemarken a month before. 

 It is a male, with small testes; the bright coloured eyebrows 

 smooth with a toothed comb, the toes feathered almost to the 

 .claws, and the tail is rounded : hence it is no hybrid. Total length 

 346 mm; wing 201, tarsus 33 Vg ™™- 



The colour is a mixture of white and black. The head and back 

 are finely speckled, each feather being browny black with white tips; 

 the region from the lower mandible and that beyond the eye is entirely 

 black. The primaries are brownish, with shafts of the same colour, 

 the outer web is fringed with white. The first secondary (white) is 

 short; in 2 — 8 the shafts and the outer webs are white, the inner 

 webs dark brown, fringed with white. The tail black, the two 

 middle feathers broadly (10—12 mm) tipped with white ; belly white, but 

 the inner parts of the feathers being black, this colour is only visible 

 in places. The under tail-coverts black, broadly tipped with white. 



Lagopus tetrici-alhus. 



{„Ry2)eo)'rc'\ hybrid between Lagopus albus J Tetrao tetrix. ?) 



The bird, called „Rypeorre", (a name originally adopted from 



the Swedish), has been known to naturalists, so far back as" the 



close of the last century, as a hybrid, bred between Tetrao tetrix 



and Lagopus albus. Here, too, it is the Black Cock, which, pairing 



