The Zoologist— Februaky, 1870. 2023 



had known kingfishers build in that pit, off and on, for the last thirty years. I saw 

 six or seven lioles, like those made by sand niariins, but I believe them all to be made 

 by kingfishers, as the crag-pil is quite a small one, wiih bushes about it, and opening 

 to the norlh, whereas the sand martin rejoices rather in a nmre, dry large and sunny 

 locality : moreover,llieve werejno sand martins about the pit, albeit they are not scarce 

 birds in its neighbourhood. — E. J. Moor. 



Reported Occurrence of the Ptarmigan in Yorkshire. — lu the 'Zoologist' for 

 December (S. S. 1951) I observed a paragraph headed, " White Partridges (? Ptar- 

 migan) near Ganton, Yorkshire," in which Captain Bell quotes the statement of 

 Mr. Grainger (in the ' Hull and Eastern Counties Herald") that " two brace of while 

 partridges had been shot near Ganton," and concludes by expressing his opinion that 

 the birds in question were ^^ probably ptarmigan." Considering this extremely 

 improbable, and there being no editorial comment appended to Captain Bell's remark, 

 I thought it well to have all doubts upon the matter set at rest, as soon as possildc, and 

 accordingly wrote direct to Mr. Grainger, at Hull, to make some inquiries. I requested 

 him particularly to examine the legs of the birds in question, and to inform me 

 whether the tarsi and toes were bare as in the partridge, or feathered as in the grouse. 

 The answer which he was good enough to send me is as follows: — " I am sorry to have 

 been so long in answeiing your favor of the 1st of December, but 1 have been waiting 

 until now (December 8ih) to see the man who preserved the birds, in order that I 

 might be belter able to answer your questions. You are right in supposing these birds 

 are not ptarmigan. I believe they are in every sense of the word partridges. They 

 are of course not a snowy white: I should term them really cream-coloured. The 

 birds have the tarsi and the toes completely bare, and not feathered. JMoreover, they 

 have a very light chestnut shoe on the breast, and this I imagine is possessed by 

 partridges alone. I believe there were several more birds of this description in the 

 cover at the time these were shot. I trust this information will prove satisfactory to 

 you, and am," &c., &c. After the perusal of this letter there can be no longer any 

 doubt on the subject, and I may take the ojiporliinity of remarking that there is no 

 evidence on record to show that the ptarmigan {Gaelic^ tarmachai;) has ever been 

 found so far south as Yorkshire. The distribution of this species in the British 

 Islands has been carelully investigated by Mr. A. G. More, and his observations on 

 the subject which appeared in the ' Ibis ' for 1865 (p. 427) are well worth quoting here. 

 He says: — "At present tlie plaimigan is confined to Scotland, though there are 

 records of its having formerly inhabited Westmoreland and Cumberland. (See Pen- 

 nant and other earlier writers). Heysham describes the ptarmigan as having become, 

 in his time, very scarce in Cumberland, and he cites the lofty mountains about Kes- 

 wick as the only locality known to him. There is a tradition of its former existence in 

 Wales, but I have not been able to discover the original authority for this statement, 

 which is repeated by both Macgillivray and Thompson, and in Graves' ' British Ornitho- 

 logy.' My valued correspondent. Dr. J. A. Smith, of Edinburgh, has copied for 

 me, from a newspaper, a paragraph stating that the ptarmigan inhabits the county of 

 Peebles; but this is the only authority for its occurrence so far south on the niaiidand 

 at present. The bird inhabits Islay and Jura (Thompson), Mull (Mr. II. D. Graham), 

 Dumbarton {Mr. K. Gray), Argyle, Perth, and all the counties northward. Mr. John 

 Macgillivray found the ptarmigan spaiiiigly in South Uist, and it has only recently 

 been exterminated in Hoy." — /. E. Hurting. 



