126 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



Market received fifteen thousand ptarmigan that 

 had been consigned fl^him. Sir A. de Capell 

 Brooke calculated that sixty thousand had been 

 killed during one winter in a single parish in 

 Lapland ; and Mr. Lloyd says that a dealer in 

 Norway will dispose of fifty thousand in a season. 

 The profit to the importer must be great, as a 

 single ptarmigan, which is seldom disposed of 

 in London for less than two shillings or two 

 and sixpence, is sold in the market at Drammen 

 for the trifling sum of fourpence. Strange as 

 it may appear, all these birds are taken in 

 separate horse-hair nooses during the winter ; 

 and so brisk a traffic is carried on by the 

 peasantry at that season, that one of them, we 

 are told, will set from five hundred to a thou- 

 sand of these snares. 



There is a second species of ptarmigan in 

 Norway (lagopus saliceti, or subalpma of Nilsson), 

 It is larger, and found in lower and less moun- 

 tainous districts, than lagopus alpina of the latter 

 author, which is identical with the Scottish bird 

 (lagopus mutus). 



But to return to the red grouse. Thanks to 

 railways and the rapidity of steam communica- 

 tion between London and Inverness, the acqui- 

 sition of a first-rate moor is now only a question 

 of money ; and the opulent citizen who but 



