Z ACCIDENTAL OCCURENCE IN NOVA SCOTIA 



post-road between Elmsdale and Enfield, y^ mile southwest 

 of Elmsdale, Hants County, in the interior of Nova Scotia, 

 while playing in a field at the back of their house, saw a strange 

 white bird alight in the field which adjoins woodland. The 

 bird began to feed on the remains of the preceding year's buck- 

 wheat. He ran into the house and got a .22 rifle, with a bullet 

 from which he wounded the bird and then caught it, but it 

 died soon afterwards. The railway trackmen of the locality 

 also reported having seen the strange bird the same day, but 

 they thought it was a white dove or pigeon. 



Description. — Such a bird had never been seen before, and 

 the specimen was brought to the Provincial Museum on May 

 1st, and was then in excellent condition (Museum Accession 

 No. 5090). It was an adult male Ptarmigan in full winter 

 plumage. The general colour was snowy white; tail very dark 

 fuscous ("very nearly black), very narrowly tipped with white, 

 the broadest part of the white tips, .08 inch, being on the two 

 middle feathers; middle line of shafts of primaries dark fuscous 

 (except toward tip); transocular or loral stripe and bill, black; 

 bare skin above eye, red; feet soiled white. 



The measurements, very carefully made, were: length, 

 15.00 inches; wing, 7.40; tail, 4.45; tarsus, 1.29; bill from nos- 

 tril, .38; depth of bill at nostril, .32; weight, 15 1-2 ozs. The 

 feet and plumage did not show the slightest evidence that the 

 bird had ever been in captivity; and the bird was not at all in 

 a starved or emaci'ated condition, thereby showing that it 

 had fared well for food. 



Determination. — The dimensions of the bill show conclusive- 

 ly that it is not one of the varieties of the stout-billed Willow 

 Ptarmigan {L. lagopus lagopus), but that it is one of the races 

 of the Rock Ptarmigan (L. rupestris rupestris, L. rtipestris rein- 

 hardi, or what is known as L. welchi). 



In measurements, these three last-mentioned geographic 

 races agree, and they are structurally the same, and it is also 

 impossible to distinguish them apart by colour when in the 

 white winter plumage. It is claimed, however, that they may 

 be separated by certain colour diff^erences when in the summer 



