240 GALLIFORMES 



CHAP. 



are similar to those of the last-named, but a preference is shewn 

 for willow- and birch-scrub ; shoots of these trees or of Vaccinium, 

 with various moorland berries, furnishing the food. A perform- 

 ance recalling the " lek " of the Capercaillie is said to be given 

 by the male in spring, a fact also true of the succeeding species.^ 

 L. mutus, the Ptarmigan or Fjeld-riporre, is in summer blackish- 

 brown with grey and rufous markings, the median tail-feathers, 

 abdomen, and most of the wings being white. The back becomes 

 grey in autumn. The female is reddish-buff, barred with black. 

 In winter both sexes are white, with black and white rectrices, and 

 in the male with black lores. Nearly all the so-called Ptarmigan 

 in English poulterers' shops are Willow Grouse. The haunts 

 are on the higher parts of mountain-ranges, where stony ground 

 abounds, but somewhat lower altitudes are sought after the 

 breeding season. The food consists of shoots and berries ; the cry 

 is croaking, and best heard in misty weather. From five to ten 

 eggs, with blacker markings than those of Eed Grouse, are deposited 

 in a hole scraped in the earth, with little or no lining, the nest 

 being commonly quite exposed, though equally often under shelter 

 of a boulder. Ptarmigan are decidedly difiicult to see among the 

 similarly-coloured stones. In Scotland they occm- on most of the 

 higher hills from Arran northwards, though no longer in Dum- 

 fries and Galloway ; while abroad they occupy Northern Europe, 

 with the Pyrenees and the Alps, and possibly Northern Asia. In 

 the lighter L. rupestris the adult male never has a black breast 

 or a grey back in autumn. This form occurs in North Asia and 

 North America, with Greenland, Iceland, and Japan, many local 

 races having been described as distinct species or sub-species ; 

 while the larger L. liyperhoreus (Jiemileucurus), with a white base 

 to the tail, inhabits Spitsbergen ; and L. leucurus, with entirely 

 white rectrices the smallest member of the genus ranges along 

 the Eocky Mountains from British Columbia to New Mexico. 



Of fossil forms Coturnix and Pcdaeortyx occur in the 

 Upper Eocene of the Paris Basin, Taoperdix in the calcareous 

 deposits of Languedoc of the same age ; Palaeortyx is again 

 found with three species of Palaeoperdix, in the Middle 

 Miocene of France, while Fhasianus is not only recorded from 



^ Cf. Elliot, Monograph of the Tetraonidae, New York, 1872 ; Dresser, Birds of 

 Europe, vii. 1871-81, p. 187. To these books and those mentioned in the note on 

 p. 237, the reader must be referred for fuller details regarding the Tetraoninae. 



Il 



