162 OUR RARER BIRDS 



and -unstained as when it fell from the clouds six months 

 ago. These mountain solitudes are rarely visited by man; 

 still the birds we have come to seek are wary enough, and 

 strive by arts of deepest wile to escape our notice. You see 

 those round grayish objects dotted here and there over 

 yonder bit of level ground? Stones, surely ; they never move ; 

 they are part of the ground itself. But no ; they are birds 

 Ptarmigan in their summer plumage, shamming death, imi- 

 tating bits of gray lichen-covered rocks, in the hopes that 

 their deceptive actions will effectually prevent their detection. 

 We may thus often wander amongst a number of these 

 mountain Grouse without observing them, until we almost 

 stumble over a crouching bird, when one by one they rise 

 all round us and hurriedly fly away. 



The Ptarmigan is one of the best instances I know of pro- 

 tective coloration. In spring and summer it dons a dress of 

 mottled gray and brown, which absolutely shields the bird from 

 its enemies, as we have already seen ; and, still more interesting, 

 as soon as these wild mountain tops begin to get covered 

 with the wintery snows, the Ptarmigan loses its summer 

 livery and assumes a snow-white plumage, which renders it 

 invisible among the eternal whiteness of its dreary haunt. 

 It has many enemies, ever on the alert big Eagles and active 

 Falcons that hunt the mountain tops ; and were it the least 

 bit conspicuous it would soon become exterminated. A bird 

 whose greatest safety is on the ground does not fly much, and 

 consequently the Ptarmigan only uses its wings to escape 

 from an enemy when every other artifice has failed, or when 

 it flies across the deep valleys from one mountain top to 

 another. 



When all is quiet the Ptarmigan may sometimes be seen 

 sitting on the bare rocks, but it is generally met with on the 

 ground, where it runs about in a very similar manner to the 

 Eed Grouse. Many of its habits are also like those of that 



