168 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



A man must needs be either an excessively keen hunter 

 for a bag or a very indifferent shot to render a whole day's 

 Ptarmigan shooting in this part of Iceland either exciting 

 or instructive, for in August they are so numerous and 

 tame that in order to shoot them they must be literally 

 kicked up, and even then they seldom take flights to such 

 a distance that the covey cannot be marked down again. 



Of all the Ptarmigan found in Europe and North 

 America, the Icelandic form more closely resembles our 

 own, much more so even than the " Fjall Eipa" of 

 Norway, whose similarity one would imagine, from the 

 proximity of that country to Scotland, w r ould necessarily 

 be much greater. Such, however, is not the case, the 

 Scandinavian bird being larger and differing in other 

 respects ; whereas the Icelandic form resembles ours so 

 closely that, but for a greater inclination to a browner 

 colour on the part of the male in summer, the two birds 

 are almost identical. The flight of the Icelandic birds is 

 not so rapid or changeable as ours ; but the former prefer 

 tracts of boggy moorland or high plateaux rather than 

 steep rocky hillsides ; and this dissimilarity in the nature 

 of the ground over which they pass is sufficient to account 

 for the difference in flight. A Caithness or a Yorkshire 

 Grouse seldom squirms and twists as does his kindred 

 when driven from a rocky and precipitous mountain-top 

 in any of the Highland counties. 



The long and still summer nights of " My vatn " are 

 not ones to be remembered with enthusiasm by the sports- 

 man, traveller, native, or any one who values the delights 

 of unbroken rest after a hard day, and unless he happens 

 to be blessed with the temper of an angel and the hide of 



