HAUNTS AN1) FOOD. 141 



summer and early autumn, when one meets with it alone 

 or in families, it is usually very tame, and will often allow 

 a person to approach quite near without taking wing. 

 Not unfrequently, indeed, the fowler, or the wayfarer, 

 finds himself in the very midst of a brood without having 

 been previously aware of their presence. But as the 

 season advances the several families pack, and they then 

 become very wary, especially should they have accidentally 

 become mixed up with the Dal-Ripa, which are of a much 

 wilder nature ; and thus they keep together throughout 

 the winter, and until the month of May, when they 

 separate in pairs. 



The favourite resorts of the Fjall-Ripa are amongst 

 stones and shingle, where they find shelter in bad weather, 

 and from which in their summer plumage they are hardly 

 to be distinguished. 



Its food varies according to the season of the year. 

 During summer and autumn it feeds on the leaves and 

 seeds of plants indigenous to the elevated regions it 

 inhabits ; but in the winter, when from heavy snow-storms 

 it is unable to obtain access to the crakeberry plant 

 (Empetrum nigrum) its favourite food, the leaves of 

 which remain green all the year round it subsists for the 

 most part on the tender tops of the dwarf-birch and 

 willow, which are met with somewhat lower down on 

 the fjiill sides. 



" The easily satisfied appetite of the Fjall-Ripa," 

 M. Earth remarks, "coupled with the fact that the 

 crakeberry grows in such profusion everywhere as in 

 many places to cover the whole slope of the fjall up to 

 near the line of perpetual snow, explains the cause why 

 these birds never lack food in the higher regions where 



O O 



one would least suppose it possible for any living creature to 

 find the wherewithal to sustain existence. The crakeberry 

 plant in some years has so many berries that the ground 



