380 LABRADOR 
resembles in kind but not in quality the famous song of 
the English skylark. 
Another common bird in this coastal strip is one that 
is also a dweller farther south, an inhabitant of the eastern 
United States ; namely, the savanna sparrow, and strangely 
out of place does it seem here. 
In the more northern parts of the Arctic Zone of Labrador 
are to be found the Lapland longspur, the wheatear, possibly 
the white wagtail, the snow-bunting, snowy owl, rock 
ptarmigan, Reinhardt’s ptarmigan, the white, gray, and 
black gyrfaleons, and the American rough-legged hawk, 
although these four last-named birds may be found even 
on the southern coast. 
The American rough-legged hawk is a splendid broad- 
winged bird almost black in colour. It may sometimes be 
seen poised motionless for several minutes at a time over 
the brow of a hill, sustaining itself like a kite by the air 
currents. The gyrfalecons have more pointed wings, and 
the whiteness of the plumage of the white, or Iceland, species 
makes it very conspicuous among the dark crags where 
it nests. 
The two ptarmigans already mentioned, as well as the 
willow ptarmigan, which is found in the region of tree growth 
of the Hudsonian Zone, resemble their compatriot, the 
Arctic hare, not only in becoming white in winter, but also 
in possessing shaggy feet at this season, — feet densely 
tufted with hair in one case, with feathers in the other. 
This tufting probably acts in the manner of snow-shoes 
to prevent sinking into the deep snow, and not merely 
to keep the feet warm. The generic name of the ptarmigan 
is Lagopus, which means rabbit-footed. In the same way 
