176 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



made short flights. Long before the snow disappeared 

 the birds had commenced to assume the dark plumage 

 of summer, the head and neck changing first. The 

 birds were now very noticeable against the snow. The 

 males fought with much energy. After the young 

 had been brought off the males disappeared. 



When startled in winter the birds often fly a short 

 distance, and then, alighting on the snow, remain 

 crouched there, perfectly motionless, so that they are 

 extremely hard to see. 



As I have often noticed with the white-tailed ptarmi- 

 gan, the willow ptarmigan, when the wind is blowing 

 fiercely and the snow driving, will often alight on a 

 drift and quickly scratching a hole will crouch in it, 

 thus protected from the wind and the drifting snow, 

 which, however, may sometimes quite cover them over. 



In the summer of 1899, while the Harriman Alaska 

 expedition was in Yakutat Bay, some of the members 

 who were strolling up a ravine back of the sealing vil- 

 lage of the Indians, came upon a female ptarmigan 

 with half a dozen young. The young ones did not at 

 once hide, and one of them was caught in the hand. 

 The mother was anxious and uneasy for her little ones 

 and walked about within three or four feet of us, and 

 when the young one was caught she flew close about the 

 captor. When walking on the ground she clucked 

 like a setting hen, but with a deeper note; and after 

 her young had been released she called to them, warn- 

 ing them to remain hidden, with the same note that a 

 domestic hen uses to warn her chickens that she sees 



