188 AMERICAN GAME BIED SHOOTHSTG. 



reaches its favorite summer grounds, about the middle of 

 May or the first of June. The young broods appear 

 about the last of June or the first of July, their birth- 

 place being the open barrens, or the vicinity of some 

 stream or tarn. Having comparatively few foes in their 

 boreal home, the greater number live to adult age. 



Their food consists of buds, insects, berries, mosses, 

 and lichens, the latter two being procured by digging for 

 them in the snow. When they are confined to a lichen 

 diet their flesh is anything but palatable, but it makes a 

 dainty morsel in summer, when they live on berries and 

 insects. They are so tame at this season that they per- 

 mit persons to come within a few feet of them before 

 getting alarmed, and even when flushed, they only 

 fly a few yards before settling down again. The 

 parents are brave defenders of the chicks, and resort to 

 various stratagems to protect them from foes. As soon 

 as the broods are able to take care of themselves in the 

 autumn, several families unite in one pack, and travel 

 southward together, but when they return in spring they 

 generally move in small coveys or in pairs, and resort to 

 the same ground year after year. The inaccessible 

 haunts of this species, like those of the white-tailed 

 ptarmigan, are their best protection against foes, es- 

 pecially man, for it requires an amount of patience and 

 hard work to capture them that few would care to mani- 

 fest or endure; hence, they rarely find their way into the 

 ordinary sportsman's bag. It is said that the true 

 Lagopus muhis of Europe has been found near Eepulse 

 Bay and Wollaston Land, but the species seen there is evi- 

 dently the variety nijMstris, which resembles it so closely 

 that few inexperienced persons can distinguish them 

 apart. The affection displayed for their young by the 

 ptarmigans, the excellence of their flesh in autumn, the 

 undaunted courage of the males, which freely endanger 

 their lives to protect those under their care, and the 



