ROOSTS IN THE SNOW. ] 20 



The Dal-Ripa, as with several other forest-birds, 

 frequently passes the night in the snow, though not 

 deeply embedded, it would seem, as I have always found 

 it easily alarmed. The learned Bishop Pontoppidan was 

 fully aware of this "fact ;" for after describing the manner 

 in which the bird feeds in the summer, he observes: "But 

 in the winter they do as has been said of the black grouse. 

 They seek covering and warmth by burying themselves 

 into the deepest snow, where they sit in great heaps 

 together, taking a magazine of food with them in their 

 crops, by stuffing them as full as they can with willow and 

 bii"ch tops, so that their breasts stand out and make them 

 look as big again ; witli this store they support themselves 

 till the following spring. This particular I have from 

 Olaus Mngnus, and is quoted in his Theolog. Lib. N.C., 

 13, as an instance of the Almiiyhtv and AVise Creator's 

 care for those things that otherwise would perish." 



The Dal-Ripa is monogamous. Nevertheless it would 

 appear that before the great packs that one meets with in 

 tlie winter time break up in the spring, they hold some- 

 thing very similar to a Lek, though it may be in a different 

 sense from that of the Black-Cock and the Capercali. 



"After the middle of March," says M. Barth, "these 

 birds, then for the most part in packs of from one to two 

 hundred, seem to begin to choose their mates and to carry 

 on their Lek. Prom their tracks in the snow it is evident 

 that with their wings trailing on the ground they pace to 

 and fro after the manner of the Capercali in the breeding 

 season. . . . By degrees the packs, spreading in the 

 while, gradually descend from the fjall sides to the lower 

 valleys, and eventually to the sea-coast itself, where the 

 boulders and every little elevation may be said to be 

 covered with them. Here, thougli not in such large packs 

 as before, and still living amicably together, they carry 

 on love affairs in right good earnest. 



K 



