90 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDFNG BIRDS. 



PTARMIGAN. 



THE Ptarmigan is essentially a bird of the moun- 

 tain and the mist, although under ordinary con- 

 ditions of weather it does not appear to wander 

 far below an elevation of two thousand feet, or 

 above one of four thousand in this country. 

 Indeed, old Highland gamekeepers have told me 

 that it is not often met with on the summits of 

 mountains reaching an altitude of three thousand 

 odd feet, even where it is fairly plentiful on their 

 slopes. 



It maintains a struggling and somewhat pre- 

 carious existence on some of the Hebridean islands, 

 such as Mull, Jura, and Skye, and seems to be 

 scarcer on mountains of the mainland near the 

 Atlantic seaboard than those further removed 

 from it. 



We were unfortunately late in reaching the 

 haunts of the species near Ben Nevis last spring, 

 but although we did not succeed in finding 

 exactly what we wanted, my brother managed to 

 secure some very characteristic pictures of the 

 bird and its surroundings, one of which is here- 

 with reproduced. 



The finding of the almost full-grown young 

 bird crouching amongst the grey stones in our 

 illustration, which I ought to point out somewhat 

 severely localises its whereabouts, will convey an 

 excellent idea of the difficulties of discovering a 

 hen Ptarmigan sitting on her nest. As an 

 example of how the bird trusts to escaping 

 detection by the harmonisation of its plumage 

 with surrounding objects, the mother and other 

 chicks were crouching behind a stone on the 

 hither side of the one in the picture at the time 



