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144 



GAAfE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



remonstrance. Both parents are very devoted to, and 

 solicitous for, their young, and will permit anyone to 

 come very near, indeed almost touch them, when they are 

 accompanied by their chicks. The hen sits very close 

 during incubatio»" leaving the nest only for short inter- 

 vals, and so unwilling is she to desert her treasures that 

 she will permit herself almost to he trodden upon, and 

 frequently she has allowed herself to be captured by 

 hand rather than secure her own safety by flight. Be- 

 fore incubation is finished, she becomes quite denuded 

 of feathers on the abdomen. The young are pretty 

 creatures, very captivating, as are all chicks, and have a 

 downy dress of greenish buff or sulphur yellow, deco- 

 rated with chestnut and black. When they are half 

 grown they begin to fly, but do not attain their full size 

 until late in the autumn. 



Ptarmigan, as it appears to me, are in a constant state 

 of moult ; and I have rarely seen a specimen that did not 

 have pin-feathers on some part of its body, no matter at 

 what period of the year it was killed. The assumption 

 of the summer plumage commences on the neck, where a 

 few colored feathers appear, and the birds, during the 

 transition from the pure white winter garb to the briglit 

 summer dress, present a curious piebald and mottled ap- 

 pearance. They do not all moult at the same time, some 

 assuming the complete nuptial dress considerably before 

 the rest, and it is difficult to determine whether one sex 

 is in advance of the other in moulting, and if so, which 

 one it is. The cold rains and damp heavy fogs and mists, 

 so prevalent in the regions frequented by these birds, 

 cause the death of numbers of the young, to whom a 

 complete wetting is usually fatal, and many also perish 

 at the loss of the old birds, which have met their fate 

 either by gun or snare, when the little creatures were too 



