The Zoologist — January, 1874. 3807 



one of the chicks as a lure, down he flew from the hill above and 

 alighted close to us in a state of great excitement. Kidd was 

 getting ready to shoot him, when a redpoll passed by and settled 

 on a rock near at hand. Before 1 could get within range of it, 

 off it flew and vanished out of sight ; so I returned to our ptarmigan 

 and shot the cock. The widow and family were not wanted ; they 

 walked slowly away. We had just found another cock, and were 

 walking up to it when two deer came into view below us. I sig- 

 nalled their approach to Kidd, and he made his way to where 

 I was standing. They were on the move, and out of range, to the 

 windward of us. For some minutes we crouched behind a rock 

 watching them as they advanced, feeding here and there amongst 

 the rocks until they passed over the brow of the slope into the 

 valley we had lately left. Kidd went after them, but failing to see 

 Ihem again, he relieved his feelings by shooting at two spinster 

 ptarmigan which were sitting side by side upon a rock above him. 

 When he brought them up to me 1 showed him a cock, which he 

 failed to secure. In going after it, however, he found Cystopteris 

 fragilis growing amongst loose stones at the foot of the cliff". 

 Re-directing him to where the ptarmigan was patiently waiting to 

 be shot at again, I hastened to examine the fern in situ. On my 

 way I heard a redpoll singing, and shouted to him the intelligence. 

 The ptarmigan would wait any length of time, so he made at once 

 for the songster. Presently it flew down from the cliff" and alighted 

 in the valley beneath, where he very soon shot it and placed it in 

 my hands. Resuming the ptarmigan hunt he walked towards the 

 cliffs, where it was waiting for him still, whilst I returned to my 

 slope to search for plants. In the course of a few minutes he came 

 back, not with the ptarmigan (he could not find it), but with Cam- 

 panula uniflora, and I meanwhile had found a Gentiana, and had 

 seen an Eudorea new to the country. In going after my net to 

 catch the moth, I flushed the long-sought-for ptarmigan. Pursued 

 by the relentless engineer for a quarter of a mile down the valley, 

 it received another charge of No. 8, with little damage, and then 

 started to fly back again to me. It alighted at the foot of the slope ; 

 and stood there, stretching out its neck from behind a stone, and 

 blinking its eyes at me. I thought it must be feeble through 

 having been struck with two charges of shot; so after pelting its 

 head with a tolerable number of rocks, which I could see and hear 

 strike it, and the bird had tumbled over once or twice, I tried to 



