

The White-tailed Ptarmigan 245 



soned comrades who had " been there," and were 

 wickedly waiting to see the effect upon the aspir- 

 ant from the East. It was days before legs which 

 could kill any dismounted horseman of the plains 

 were any real use, and some time longer before 

 the schooling tenderfoot could convince himself 

 that there was not something rotten in Den- 

 mark. 



But, like the others before him, he in due time 

 hardened to the novel work and conditions, and 

 then he took his full toll of snow-quail and hugely 

 enjoyed the labor. And small wonder, for that 

 particular shooting ground lay high up among the 

 marvel-peaks where Titans had builded their state- 

 liest piles, to last the crawling ages through and 

 prove to antlike earthlings the power of the Hand 

 which guided the glacier-plough and turned those 

 gold-seeded furrows, to which men now cling and 

 peck like birds of the air. 



The summer plumage of this ptarmigan so 

 closely matches the mossy stones which cover 

 its range that even practised eyes frequently fail 

 to discover a bird until it moves. In winter, or 

 upon the everlasting snow, the white simply melts 

 into the other white, and the searcher may pass 

 within a few feet and fail to locate his game. 

 During the mating the males strut and fight like 

 all their family. The nest is some convenient, 

 trifling hollow, lined with a few fragments of foli- 



