338 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



by the sides of the fells, never in the open ; the 

 eggs generally from eight to eleven ; and, as soon 

 as the young can fly, the old females take them up 

 higher on to the fell sides, but never above the 

 willow and birch region i.e., never on to the fells 

 themselves, although I have often found them in 

 the fell valleys in July, by the side of water-courses 

 where the willow luxuriates in rich profusion. 



The food of the willow grouse during the sum- 

 mer consists almost entirely of the leaves of several 

 plants, especially of the lesser willow (Salix her- 

 bacea, Lin.), which covers all the low meadows 

 and marshy grounds at the bottom of the fells ; 

 the bleaberry (Vaccinium myrtillus, Lin.), and the 

 flowers and seed of the viviparous knot-grass 

 (Polygonum viviparium, Lin.), which is on this ac- 

 count called in Norway "rype gras;" during the 

 autumn their principal food consists of the berries 

 of the bleaberry, etc. ; and in the winter and spring 

 they seem entirely to live on the catkins of the 

 birch (both the dwarf and the common), and the 

 stalks of the bleaberry bushes. 



I have killed the willow grouse on the sides of 

 the (Estmark fells, in about 60 N. lat., where they 

 are tolerably numerous, and this I take it is their 

 most southern limit in Sweden (the most southern 

 range of the ptarmigan in Sweden appears to be 

 about 62 N. lat.) 



