1912] Swarth: Birds and Mammals from Vancouver Island 25 



breast are coarsely mottled, black and white, the feathers being 

 barred with these colors in about equal amounts, and with a little 

 ochraceous intermixed. Abdomen, white, suffused with dusky. 

 Flanks barred with pale ochraceous and black. The general 

 appearance is of a gray colored bird, with a suffusion of buffy 

 on the back. The six specimens are almost precisely alike, having 

 advanced to the same stage in the molt almost feather for feather. 

 The lack of comparable specimens prevents the comparison 

 of these with mainland examples of leucurus. The conditions 

 surrounding the Vancouver Island white-tailed ptarmigan are 

 very similar to those under which Lagopus rupestris dixoni of 

 southeastern Alaska has developed dissimilarities from true 

 L. r. rupestris of the interior, and it seemed natural to suppose 

 that there might be a humid coast race of leucurus perceptibly 

 different from the mainland form. The determination of this, 

 however, will have to await the obtaining of additional material. 

 Through the kindness of Mr. Frank M. Chapman, Curator of 

 Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, I have been 

 enabled to compare my birds with some young of Lagopus I. 

 pcuinsularis from the Kenai Mountains, Alaska. These are not 

 so far advanced in the change into the transition plumage, but 

 in the comparable parts there is surprisingly little difference 

 between the two series. On the head and neck, however, where 

 the juvenal plumage has been discarded, the Vancouver Island 

 birds seem to be more purely gray, that is, more decidedly black- 

 and-white-barred, and with less admixture of ochraceous, than is 

 the case with any other white-tailed ptarmigan at hand, either 

 adult or young. 



Phasianus torquatus Gmelin 

 Ring-necked Pheasant 

 Introduced in the southern part of Vancouver Island, where 

 it appears to be increasing in numbers and extending its range. 

 Miss Kellogg saw one at French Creek, May 18, and a number 

 were observed about Errington in September. We were told 

 that there were a few in the vicinity of Alberni, but none was 

 encountered there by any member of our party. At Errington 

 they were usually seen in the grain fields, but took refuge in 

 the timber when flushed. Unlike the native grouse they were 



