PTARMIGAN. 331 



Mr. Lloyd says that M. Nilsson considers the Scandina- 

 vian Fyall-ripa identical with our Ptarmigan, to be the same 

 bird described by Faber as common to Iceland ; but with 

 two specimens of the Iceland bird before me, obtained from 

 Mr, Proctor of the Durham Museum, who brought them 

 from Iceland himself, I am induced to think Fajjer was 

 correct in considering the Ptarmigan of Iceland distinct, and 

 naming it accordingly Islandorum. Both the sjDccimens I 

 possess are males, one in winter plumage, the other killed in 

 spring, and exhibiting a portion of the plumage of summer. 

 Both these birds have black feathers before and behind the 

 eye, and by this mark are distinguished from the Willow 

 Bird ; both these birds measure seventeen inches in length, 

 and are therefore as large as the largest males of the Willow 

 Bird ; the beak is equally bulky, and the colour of the 

 summer plumage in the spring-killed specimen, as far as at 

 present obtained, does not agree with that of either the male 

 or female of our Lagopus mutus. 



I believe with M. Temminck and Mr. Henry Doubleday, 

 that the Ptarmigan figured by Mr. Gould and Mr. Eyton 

 under the name of rupestris, is only the female of our com- 

 mon Ptarmigan in her summer plumage. 



In our three representations of the Ptarmigan, at the head 

 of this subject, the lower figure is taken from a female killed 

 in the month of May, the upper figure from a male killed 

 in October, and the middle figure from a male bird killed in 

 January. 



Since the account of the Capercaillie here given was print- 

 ed, I have learned by the publication of an article upon this 

 bird in the Sporting Review for April 1840, that the great- 

 est success in hatching and rearing the young birds was ob- 

 tained, at the seat of Lord Breadalbane in Scotland last 

 year, by putting the eggs laid by the Capercaillie hens in 

 the aviary into the nests of the Black Grouse. " Forty-nine 



