TOWNSENDS PT.vRMIGAN. 



T^HIS is anuthtr sptcics of Ptarmigan that has been 

 * seen by few naturaHsts in its wild state, and was 

 brought from the Aleutian islands of Kyska and Adak 

 by Mr. Townsend, after whom it has been named. Only 

 about twenty specimens were procured, and the visitors' 

 sojourn at the islands was too brief for any particular 

 knowledge of the birds' habits to be gained. 



Probably, like other of its relatives in the Aleutian 

 chain, it will never become an object for the sportsman's 

 pursuit, the island on which it lives being situated too 

 far away from all civilization to be easily accessible. 





LA GO PUS RUPESTRIS TOWNSENDI. 



Geographical Distribution. — Kyska and Adak Islands, Aleu- 

 tian Chain. 



Adult Male in Summer.— General color of entire upper parts, 

 including head and neck, together with the breast and flanks, 

 raw umber, with a tinge of russet, finely vermiculated with black 

 on lower back and rump, more coarsely marked on the other 

 parts with black blotches on the head, neck, upper part of back 

 and wings; feathers of back, rump, and wings tipped with white; 

 some of these white tips are finely spotted with black, giving to 

 them a gray appearance; the outer secondaries, tertials, and 

 most of the wing-coverts and primaries, pure white, the last hav- 

 ing black shafts; the long upper tail-coverts are marked and 

 colored like the back, with white tips; tail, clove-brown, nearly 

 black, the feathers tipped with white, broadest on the middle 

 pair, and decreasing on the outer ones, where it is either hardly 

 perceptible or absent altogether; throat, white, mixed with a few 

 colored feathers; breast, sides of neck, and flanks, ochraceous, 



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