322 BIRDS CHARGING INTO SNOW DRIFTS. 



to quit the shelter of the snow, where they have regular 

 holes, like the hares, which they constantly inhabit, only 

 emerging from them in fine, still, weather. It would 

 therefore seem that in some way they must manage 

 to work their way through the drift until they reach 

 the vegetation, which as we have explained is probably 

 always growing in the hollow chambers which un- 

 questionably exist at the surface of the ground beneath 

 and it may be that they construct these burrows while 

 the snow is still in a soft state, in autumn, and that 

 their breath congealing upon the inner surface is suffi- 

 cient to prevent their collapse and even to enlarge 

 them, until the snow has hardened and afterwards melts 

 away in spring. 



The fearless way in which ptarmigan, in common 

 with other varieties of northern grouse, will fly headlong 

 at full speed into a snow drift, has often been noticed 

 and commented upon by travellers with astonishment. 

 On striking the drift they of course instantly disappear, 

 knocking up a little cloud of snow-dust by their impact, 

 as if it had been struck by a bullet. Mr. Lloyd, in 

 his "Northern Field Sports," has noticed the same pecu- 

 liarity both in the blackcock and the capercailzie, in 

 Scandinavia ; and Mr. Levinge has observed it in the 

 case of the " Birch Partridge " as it is called, in Canada. 

 This bird is however a true grouse (Tetrao Umbellus] 

 and Mr. Levinge says 



" When about to ensconce themselves, they charge into the 

 snow with all their might, the impetus carrying them some way 

 into it, sufficiently far to prevent foxes etc. being attracted 

 to the spot: indeed so small is the orifice in the snow, the 

 particles of which naturally fall over it, that the unpractised 

 eye might pass numbers of these birds, thus concealed. The 



