CHAPTER XIX. THE PTARMIGAN 

 AND CAPERCAILZIE. 



OF the three divisions df the United Kingdom, Scotland 

 alone is any longer able to boast the Ptarmigan among its 

 game birds, and even there it is only the more northern part 

 which can count the bird as its own. It is annually becoming 

 scarcer, or rather, more limited in the range of uplands it 

 frequents, consequent upon the progress of agriculture among 

 the mountain parts it haunts. As far as preserving goes, 

 it is beyond control, for although far from possessing the 

 wildness and fear of man of the red and black grouse, it 

 brooks no encroachment upon its domains. Hence the chief 

 requisite is to guard its haunts from intrusion and dis- 

 turbance in order to secure the remnant of the race, for they 

 appear to be well able to cope successfully with their natural 

 enemies, of which they have but few in the localities they 

 frequent. . 



The natural history of the ptarmigan is of considerable 

 interest, chiefly by reason of the change of colour which 

 comes over it prior to the approach of winter, when it 

 assumes, in place of its summer plumage, which mostly 



