238 ANIMALS AND BIRDS COLLECTED 



Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus lagopus). 

 — One specimen, Fort Du Brochet, Reindeer Lake, 

 November 4. " Same day first Barren-ground 

 Caribou of the season were shot." 



Natives at Fort Du Brochet say that this species 

 arrives there about mid-October. " Diary of 

 halfbreed, Philip Merasty, records : ' White Par- 

 tridge seen at Fort on October 6, 1913, snow 

 having fallen ere that date.' " Four specimens 

 observed north of Fort Du Brochet, October 27 ; 

 the first noted to arrive this winter. An Indian 

 reported two seen on October 30. 



Note on November 7 that this species is now 

 common north of Fort Du Brochet ; birds rise 

 with a startling flutter of wings out of the snow 

 at the foot of the Scrub Pines. This species 

 plentiful in neighbourhood of Thanout-Tua (Lake), 

 Thlewiaza Or River, November 23 ; noted that 

 those birds sometimes call exactly like Red 

 Grouse when startled to flight. 



There is a lake named " White Partridge 

 Lake," or Kasba Lake, twenty miles south of the 

 Barren Grounds, near neighbourhood where this 

 species noted as plentiful. 



Two observed north of Fort Du Brochet, 

 December 12, and large pack seen on December 13. 

 Observed December 15. On December 18, 

 after searching three days without observing 

 single bird of this species, I note : It is strange 

 how those birds appear to come and go ; it may 

 be because the food-supply of willow-shoots, and 

 Labrador Tea-buds, on which they now feed, is 

 so scant above the snow that they are soon picked 

 bare, and then the birds move on to fresh feeding- 



