WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN. 



Lagopus leucurus. 



Lagopus leucurus peninsularis. 



Winter plumage snow-white throughout; the bill 

 and eyes being the only dark spots to be seen. The 

 summer plumage is buff, or, later in the season, clay 

 color, coarsely barred with black on a pale ground. 

 There is little difference between the male and the 

 female. The tail is always white. 



In the young the tail feathers at first are not white, 

 but are mottled with brownish. They become white 

 with moulting, however. 



The sub-species, peninsularis, inhabits the alpine 

 mountains of central Alaska, northern Yukon, N. W. 

 Mackenzie, south to Cook Inlet, Kenai Peninsula and 

 southern Yukon. 



In all America, the especial home of the grouse, 

 there is no prettier member of this family than the 

 white-tailed ptarmigan. Like all its kind, it loves the 

 cold and snow, but, unlike the other American mem- 

 bers of the group, it substitutes altitude for latitude 

 and is an inhabitant of the lofty mountains of the 

 West, from central Alaska and northern. Yukon south 

 to Washington and New Mexico. Here on the very 

 edge of perpetual snowfields, not far from some brawl- 



