PTAKMIGAN. 329 



tlie first quill-feather an inch and a half shorter than the se- 

 cond ; the second rather longer than the fifth ; the third and 

 fourth nearly equal in length, and the longest in the wing. 

 The wings of the bird killed in autumn are seldom perfect, 

 as this is the season for moulting the flight feathers. 



The female is smaller than the male, and is pure white 

 in winter, like the male already described, except that she 

 has no short black feathers before or behind the eye. By 

 the end of April the female has assumed almost as much 

 mixture of feather, barred black and ochreous yellow, with 

 white tips, as the male bird has of those which arc grey ; 

 a female bird from Scotland, bought in the London market 

 during the second week in May, 1839, is much farther 

 advanced, having the whole of the head, neck, back, rump, 

 upper tail-coverts, upper part of the breast and sides, covered 

 with feathers of greyish black and yellow in bars, many of 

 them still retaining the white tips ; in the course of the 

 summer these yellow or very pale chestnut-coloured feathers, 

 barred with greyish black, pervade the breast, sides, and 

 flanks, very similar to those already described, as formino- 

 part of the summer plumage of the Red Grouse. By the 

 beginning of September, the upper surface of the body has 

 become freckled grey, like that of the male, but with a few 

 yellow feathers remaining ; the under surface of the body 

 with some grey feathers among the yellow ones ; the quill- 

 feathers, and some of the wing-coverts, with those on the 

 middle line of the belly, white ; as the autumn advances the 

 yellow-coloured feathers are first lost, afterwards those w^hich 

 are grey, leaving the bird wholly white. 



The length of the female fourteen inches and a half. 

 From the carpal joint to the end of the wing seven inches 

 and a half. 



Mr. Macgillivray says, " The young are at first covered 

 with a light yellowish grey down, patched on the back with 



