104 GALLINACEOUS BIRDS GROUSE 



capture many of them with snares. They are there 

 found on the level plains and are shot like prairie-grouse. 

 Lieutenant McConnell, of the revenue cutter Bear, wrote 

 an excellent account of this sport for a magazine now 

 out of print ; this is quoted at length in " True Game 

 Birds." The shooting was done in company with 

 some Esquimaux, who "pointed and retrieved," the 

 lieutenant says, "in a way that would have put many 

 a good bird-dog to shame." 



The ptarmigan is almost invisible in winter when it 

 sits motionless on the snow; but the great snowy o\vl 

 is said to find many of them, and the foxes are here, as 

 elsewhere, the natural enemies of the grouse. 



The ptarmigans pack as soon as the young are full 

 grown, and Mr. Tripp records seeing flocks containing 

 one hundred or more in the mountains of Colorado. 

 Their flight is well sustained and rapid, and they are 

 able to fly great distances, but, like the prairie-grouse, 

 when not much pressed they do not fly far. Mr. Tripp 

 says that when seldom molested they are very tame, 

 but when persistently pursued they become wild and 

 leave the range of a shot-gun with surprising quickness. 

 After several large flocks had been hunted for three or 

 four days they grew so shy that it was difficult to ap- 

 proach within gunshot, although at first they had been 

 comparatively tame. Nimble of foot, the ptarmigan 

 frequently prefers to run away on the approach of 

 danger rather than take wing, running over the rocks 

 and leaping from point to point with great agility, 

 stopping every little while to look at the object of 

 alarm. " I sometimes chased them," Mr. Tripp says, 

 " half a mile or more over the rocky, craggy ridges 



