48 Bird-Life in Jjibrador. 



no doubt but that the ruffed grouse might occasionally stray 

 so far out of its range, but am by no means certain. 



WILLOW PTARMIGAN 



Lagopus albu*. (GM.) Aro. 



OF the ptarmigans ornithologists, as well as the natives of 

 Labrador, insist that there are three species inhabiting these 

 regions. Several intelligent citizens with whom I conversed 

 upon the subject, and who were themselves hunters of no 

 mean repute, assured me that these three species could be 

 told in connection with the usual distinguishing marks by the 

 color of the iris. They explained that the difference between 

 the cock and the hen, and in breeding and out of breeding 

 season, c<>uld also be thus distinguished. One person tried to 

 explain the matter, but ended by leaving it in a much worse 

 jumble than it was previous to his first statement. Two 

 species, certainly, this and the following, are common resi- 

 dents and breed in the interior; and beautiful birds they are 

 either in their snow-white Winter or their dove-colored spot- 

 ted Summer plumage. The ptarmigan, in relative abundance, 

 has its off and its on years as do many other of the game birds 

 of the States and Lower Canada. Two very intelligent hunt- 

 ers, brothers, told me that the year before I visited the coast, 

 in 1880, they took, with their guns and their traps, three hun- 

 dred ptarmigan and eight hundred rabbits. The Winter of 

 1880 and 1881 we took about fifty ptarmigan altogether and 

 not a single rabbit. Later in the season the Indians from the 

 interior reported that a peculiar disease had attacked the rab- 

 bits and that they died by the hundreds. The nature of this 

 disease could not of course be ascertained. It was reported 

 that the animals would suddenly rush from the concealed 

 woods to some open space where they would race madly a- 

 round in a circle until they dropped dead. That year the 

 Indians refused to eat them, at least so they gave us to un- 

 derstand. The flesh of the ptarmigan is very highly es- 



