176 FRANK SCIILEY'S PARTRIDGE AND PHEASANT SHOOTING. 



ROCK PTARMIGAN. 



Lagopus mutus, Var, rupestris. LEACH. 



ABITS. According to Hutchins, this Ptarmigan is 

 numerous at the two extremes of Hudson's Bay, but 

 does not appear at the middle settlements of York 

 and Severn except in very severe seasons, when the 

 Willow Grouse are scarce ; and Captain Sabine informed 

 Richardson that they abounded on Melville Island, latitude 

 75, in the summer. They arrived there in their snow- 

 white winter dress about the 12th of May. By the end of 

 the month the females had begun to assume their colored 

 plumage, which was completed by the first week in June, 

 when the change in the plumage had only just commenced 

 in the males. Some of the latter were found as late as the 

 middle of June in their unaltered winter plumage. This 

 Grouse was also found on the Melville peninsula and the 

 Barren Grounds, rarely going farther south, even in the 

 winter, than latitude 53 in the interior, but, on the coast 

 of Hudson's Bay, descending to latitude 58, and in severe 

 seasons still farther to the southward. In its general man- 

 ners and mode of living it is said to resemble the albus, but 

 does not retire so far into the wooded country in the win- 

 ter. At that season it frequents the more open woods on 

 the borders of lakes, especially in the 65th parallel, but 

 the bulk of this species remains on the skirts of the Bar- 

 ren Grounds. They incubate in June. 



Mr. Mac Farlan'e found this spc.eies breeding about Fort 

 Anderson, and on the Barren Grounds east of the Horton 

 River. They nest, in a similar manner to L~ albus, on the 

 ground, placing the materials in a depression on the 

 ground, and using hay, withered leaves, and a few feathers 

 and making a rather loose, ill-arranged nest. This is 



