THE WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN. 595 
have a mellow, rolling note, which is not unlike Biddy’s brooding ery. It is 
meant for menace, but its utterance only increases one’s desire to pick the 
bird up and fondle it. 
For a nesting site the female usually chooses a sloping, grass-covered 
hillside, or a stretch of gravelly soil half-covered by vegetation. In this she 
makes a considerable depression, lines it carefully with grass and twigs, 
with some feathers from her own breast, and deposits eggs, from six to ten, 
or even twelve, in number. These resemble the eggs of the Sooty Grouse 
(Dendragapus obscurus fuliginosus) much more than they do those of other 
SpeeCies Wit 
Ptarmigan, since 
they are of a 
warm buffy or 
pale ruddy hue, 
dotted and spot- 
tedeae Dnt tia trOxt 
Gexgtie ml Sulveelay 
blotched, with 
reddish brown. 
The time cho- 
sen for nesting 
depends largely 
upon the season 
and the relative 
amount of snow- 
fall, which is so 
variable in our 
MOMMA eles Ts 
Cimckiss “ane 
brought off by 
the 4th of July 
some years, and 
again not till 
August. Mr. C. 
C. Cornell is of 
opinion that the 
Ptarmigans on 
Mount Baker 
raise two broods 
in a season, and 
affirms that the Photo taken July 6, 1908, by W L. Dawson. 
first brood is SLUISKIN FALLS. 
