2'')8 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



ON THE SHEDDING OF THE CLAWS IN THE PTARMIGAN 



AND ALLIED BIRDS. 



By Leonhard Stejneger.* 



The fact of the Ptarmigans shedding their claws regularly 

 every summer seems not to have been observed personally by 

 any of the many excellent American ornithologists, and has 

 therefore been comparatively little known to them. It may 

 consequently not be without interest to demonstrate this process, 

 as I have material at hand which shows the procedure very 

 l^lainly. 



The late Prof. Sven Nilsson, the famous Swedish zoologist, 

 was the first to discover this peculiarity in the Ptarmigans. His 

 countryman, Prof. W, Meves, afterwards confirmed his observa- 

 .tions, and at the same time proved that this singular shedding 

 of the claws also occurs in other birds of the family Tetraonidce, 

 as, for instance, in both sexes of Bonasa honasia, Urogallus 

 urogallus, and also, in the female at least, of Tetrao tetrix. 



As will be seen in the specimens of the Lagopus ridgioayi 

 (a new species which I was fortunate enough to detect on the 

 Commander Islands, near Kamtschatka), shot in June and 

 August, before shedding, the middle claw measures 18 — 20 mm., 

 while in a specimen shot on the 2.3rd of August, and which has 

 just thrown the old ones off, the length of the new claw is only 

 li mm. More instructive still is a male, shot on the same day, 

 as it has the claws only partially shed. The old claws have 

 become loosened from their base, and are forced 2 — 3 mm. out, 

 still covering the tip of the new ones, except on two toes, from 

 which they have already dropped oil. Hence it is obvious that 

 the process is not a pathological one, in which the nail drops 

 off as soon as it is perfectly separated from its bed, and has 

 ceased to receive nourishment through the blood-vessels. 



Most conclusive, however, is a specimen of a quite difi"erent 

 species, Lagopus albus, a specimen collected by Dr. Bean, on 

 Unga, one of the Shumagin Islands, Alaska. About this speci- 

 men Dr. Bean remarks, in his " Notes on Birds collected in 

 Alaska," &c., in the Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 1882 (p. 163), as 



- Reprinted from ' The American Natm-alist,' vol. xviii. pp. 774 — 776 

 (1884). 



