218 A PTARMIGAN DAY. 



breeding year. For these few birds there is such 

 an amount of rocky and (unless to an experienced 

 hillman) dangerous ground to be searched, that 

 even with trained ptarmigan dogs, and working 

 them hard to boot, many an enthusiastic sports- 

 man may return without having stumbled on a 

 single bird all day. 



Certainly it is not mere love of shooting that 

 can give excitement or piquancy to a wearisome 

 "West Highland ptarmigan range. Strip it of its 

 scenery, labour, difficulty, and it is nothing; but 

 a few brace of ptarmigan, with these adjuncts 

 thrown into the scale, would outweigh, with every 

 true lover of Highland shooting, the heaviest 

 game-bag gathered with little trouble, sometimes 

 even with little fatigue. 



To sally forth alone on a distant and toilsome 

 ptarmigan expedition had a peculiar charm for 

 me. One could thus realise a modicum of the 

 self-reliant independence, nay, even some of the 

 endurance of hardship, at once the unfailing 

 characteristic and the boast of the rovers among 

 the American backwoods. 



Even a successful day at white grouse on the 



