WILLOW PTARMIGAN 169 
and hasya smaller, weaker bill. In full summer plum- 
age its upper parts are deep rich chestnut, thickly and 
finely waved with black, the tip of each feather narrow- 
ly white. The lower throat and fore neck are chestnut, 
the breast becoming finely cross-lined with black, which 
increases toward the belly. The sides and flanks are 
very dark. 
The range of the willow ptarmigan, often called the 
willow grouse, is chiefly confined to the Arctic regions 
in North America, reaching from Alaska, over much 
of the British Provinces, to the Atlantic, and rarely 
straggling south into the United States—Minnesota, 
New York and New England. Twenty-five or thirty 
years ago it was not uncommon to find specimens of 
this bird in the hands of taxidermists in New York, 
the birds having presumably been shipped to that city 
from southern Canada. 
In many parts of the North the birds are exceeding- 
ly abundant and form no inconsiderable portion of the 
winter food supply of the Indians, while many are 
killed about the Hudson’s Bay posts. Much of what 
we know about these birds comes from E. W. Nel- 
son, who made his observations on the shores of the 
Bering Sea, and from L. M. Turner, who studied them 
in Labrador, with his headquarters at Ungava. 
From these observations we can get a good idea of 
the life of the willow ptarmigan. 
In winter these birds seem to be to some extent 
migratory, and, moving southward—partly, no doubt, 
in search of food—are found in considerable numbers as 
