CHAPTER VII, 



PTARMIGAN SHOOTING. 



; Trained to the chase, his eagle eye 

 The ptarmigan in snow could spy." SCOTT. 



BEING a member of the grouse family, in a work 

 merely of natural history, the ptarmigan would have 

 been entitled to a notice among its race ; but, as 

 inferior to the pheasant and partridge, as a bird of 

 game, it must be content to follow them in these 

 pages. Steam navigation, and the recent uncommon 

 facilities of locomotion, have rendered us familiar 

 with the presence of this pretty bird in the shops 

 of the poulterers, without our knowing, or probably 

 caring, " how the devil it got there." Indeed, the 

 most recondite in sporting reading, would have found 

 it difficult to expatiate on the habits, pursuit, and 

 process of sporting after the ptarmigan, till the 

 publication of Mr. Colquhoun's " Moor and Loch." 

 Hawker is silent about it; Daniel spoke of it as 

 somebody had spoken to him ; and Colonel Thornton 



