WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN 195 
tudes. Rarely the eagle’s broad pinions cast their dark 
shadow over snowfield and rock slope, but the eagle 
is generally in search of larger game, the tender young 
of the big horn or of the white goat. The great bears 
that in early summer prowl over the range, looking for 
the young grass or digging out mice, or later pick- 
ing the luscious huckleberries, do not give a thought 
to the ptarmigan, unless by chance they stumble on 
her nest, when it suffers the fate of every thing eatable 
that comes in Bruin’s way. 
Of all the animals of the mountains, the one that 
the ptarmigan has most to fear is perhaps the pine 
marten. He is always traveling about, alow and aloft; 
equally at home among the trees of the forest and the 
rocks of the peaks, always hungry, always searching 
for food; and, while it may be doubted whether he 
destroys many full-grown ptarmigan, we may feel sure 
that he compasses the death of many young and pil- 
lages many a nest. 
Although the white-tailed ptarmigan is abundant 
enough in the high mountains which it inhabits, it is 
scarcely known at all to sportsmen. Only the hardy 
spirit who climbs above timber line in search of sheep 
or goats, or that other enthusiast whose highest pleas- 
ure it is to reach the summit of the loftiest mountain 
peaks, ever reaches the home of this bird; and as 
neither of these ever burdens himself with a shotgun, 
it is almost never killed for sport. In Colorado, where 
many prospectors and miners carry on their operations 
far above timber line, the ptarmigan is often killed for 
