196 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



food, but in other parts of the West man interferes but 

 little with the abundance of this species. 



This ptarmigan is found in considerable numbers 

 above timber line on most of the mountains of western 

 America. It does not occur in the Sierra Nevada, 

 nor in the Cascades south of Washington. It is no- 

 where very abundant, though I have seen them, in 

 autumn, in flocks of twenty-five or thirty, and recall 

 an afternoon when, on Mount Jackson, in Montana, 

 two of the party secured twenty-two of the birds. 

 Yet, as a rule, they are nowhere very common, a single 

 brood often seeming to occupy its own range of ter- 

 ritory, which is not encroached on by others. I have 

 not seen them in large flocks as mentioned below by 

 Mr. Trippe. 



The nest of the white-tailed ptarmigan is built high 

 up on the mountain-side above timber line, and may be 

 located anywhere among the loose stones and rocks. 

 A little depression is perhaps scratched out near a 

 patch of grass or weeds, and here the mother bird 

 deposits her eight or nine eggs, buff in ground color, 

 sometimes spotted with many small reddish or brown 

 dots, or, again, peculiarly blotched with larger mark- 

 ings of the same color. The nest is usually quite in 

 the open, but the grayish mother bird so closely resem- 

 bles the stones among which she nests as readily to 

 escape observation. Moreover, the confiding nature 

 of the bird gives her such courage that she will remain 

 on the nest, unscared even by the close approach of 

 some great danger. 



