OF THE ROCK PTARMIGAN PIERS 3 



plumage, if we agree that the published descriptions have been 

 founded upon sufficiently abundant material, for in a bird 

 which shows so much variation in individual specimens, the 

 difference in all cases may not be quite as great as it appears 

 on paper. Regarding the winter plumage, however, it is quite 

 clear that even specialists such as Dr. Jonathan Dwight, are 

 unable to separate the members of the Rock Ptarmigan group 

 when in that dress. 



It being, therefore, granted that these three races when in 

 white plumage cannot be separated by any known structural 

 or colour criterion, we are necessarily forced to attempt to 

 approximately identify this specimen by considering the geo- 

 graphic range of the three races and their proneness to migrate, 

 and thus arrive at some idea as to what one was most likely to 

 have found its way by chance so far south of its normal range. 



Ranges of the Rock Ptarmigans. — The typical Rock VldiV- 

 m'lgan, L. rupestris rupestris (Gmelin, 1788), A.O.U. 302, occurs 

 in Arctic Amei"ica, breeding from. Melville Island in the west 

 to Melville Peninsula in the east and south on the Barren 

 Grounds from Alaska in the west to Ungava in the east, and also 

 on alpine summits south to central Yukon. It winters south 

 in the mountains of British Columbia, and even it is said as 

 far as Vancouver Island, as well as to southern Mackenzie 

 (about !at. 63°) in the west; and to southern Ungava and Ham- 

 ilton Inlet (lat. 54°), Labrador, in the east. In normal seasons 

 it comes south on Hudson Bay to lat. 58°, and in some seasons 

 down to 55° at the entrance of James Bay. It thus has a 

 southward movement in winter of perhaps about four hundred 

 miles. It is therefore distinctly a migratory race, and hence 

 perhaps liable to occasionally get out of its normal range at 

 the times of the vernal and autumnal movements.. The near- 

 est point that it normally approaches Nova Scotia is Hamilton 

 Inlet, Labrador, which is about 700 miles northward of Elms- 

 dale, Nova Scotia. 



Reinhardt's Ptarmigan, L. rupestris reinhardi (Brehm, 

 1823), A.O.U. 302a, the second member of the group, is the 

 most northeasterly geographic race. It occurs in Greenland 



