9tf ROCK PTARMIGAN. 



cal with the northern specimens of L. rupestris, com- 

 paring it at the time with the northern specimens 

 in the Edinburgh Museum. In the Northern Zoo- 

 logy the description of the male is given, " colour, 

 snow-white ; shafts of the six greater quills and 

 fourteen tail-feathers, pitch black, the latter nar- 

 rowly tipped with white ; bill black ; nails whitish, 

 dark at the base ; male, with a black eye stripe from 

 the nostrils to the hind head ; form, bill narrower 

 at the base, and more compressed throughout than 

 that willow grouse, also larger and narrower than 

 that of the T. lagopus* (Scotch specimen) ; third 

 and fourth quills the longest; tail very slightly 

 rounded, consisting of sixteen feathers, fourteen 

 black ones, and two white incumbent ones, which, 

 with a pair of the coverts, are rather larger than 

 the rest of the tail ; tarsi and toes feathered as in 

 the willow grouse ; the nails more compressed, but 

 otherwise similar to the latter." 



" Summer plumage. A female killed on the 

 rocky mountains, latitude 55. Head, neck, back, 

 scapulars, tertiories, part of the intermediate coverts, 

 and the under plumage, barred with blackish-brown 

 and brownish-yellow, the dark colour predominating 

 above, and the yellow beneath ; most of the dorsal 

 plumage bordered on the tips with brownish-white ; 

 the remainder of the wing above, its whole surface 

 beneath, and the auxiliaries, white ; the quill shafts 

 slightly tinged with brown ; the vent feathers yel- 



* L. mutus. 



