PTARMIGAN. 379 



over the eye a naked red skin ; the throat white ; head and 

 neck mottled with blackish and speckled grey feathers, 

 a few others with narrow bars of black and ochreous 

 yellow ; the white feathers assuming the greyish black by a 

 change of the colour, as particularly observed in progress in 

 a male bird in March, when pen feathers, which were then 

 growing, were all greyish black ; the breast, back, and 

 upper tail-feathers, nearly uniform speckled grey ; the 

 fourteen under tail-feathers black ; the wings, the under 

 surface of the body, and the legs, white. 



The whole length of a male is fifteen inches and a 

 quarter. From the carpal joint to the end of the wing, 

 eight inches : the first quill -feather an inch and a half 

 shorter than the second ; the second rather longer than the 

 fifth ; the third and fourth nearly equal in length, and the 

 longest in the wing. The wings of the old birds killed in 

 autumn are seldom perfect, as this is the season for moult- 

 ing the flight feathers. 



The female is smaller than the male, and is pure white 

 in winter, like the male already described, except that she 

 has no short black feathers before or behind the eye. By 

 the end of April the female has assumed almost as much 

 mixture of feather, barred black and ochreous yellow, with 

 white tips, as the male bird has of those which are grey ; 

 a female bird from Scotland, bought in the London market 

 during the second week in May, 1839, was much further 

 advanced, having the whole of the head, neck, back, rump, 

 upper tail-coverts, upper part of the .breast and sides, 

 covered with feathers of greyish black and yellow in bars, 

 many of them still retaining the white tips ; in the course 

 of the summer these yellow or very pale chestnut-coloured 

 feathers, barred with greyish black, pervade the breast, 

 sides, and flanks, very similar to those already described, 

 as forming part of the summer plumage of the Red Grouse. 



