ORDER GALLINiE. 253 



only species of the gallinae which are capable of enduring the 

 rigorous cold of those elevated latitudes. Abundantly pro- 

 vided on every part of their bodies with a thick down, which 

 is again covered by a close and massive plumage, these birds 

 are adequately protected against the inclement sky. Their 

 feet and toes are furnished with woolly feathers, very long 

 and close, and far more abundant in winter than in summer, 

 to enable them to run with rapidity and ease along the decli- 

 vities of the ice-clad mountains. Claws of a peculiar struc- 

 ture, like pickaxes, are necessary instruments to facilitate 

 their labour in removing the snow which covers the sub- 

 stances by which they are supported. A snow white plumage 

 conceals them from the piercing eye of rapacious birds. 

 Such are the advantages bestowed, by a wise and benevolent 

 Providence, upon beings that would otherwise infallibly be- 

 come extinct in a situation where every thing external seems 

 to concur for their destruction. 



It is, therefore, only in the vast plains of the most northern 

 parts of Europe, Asia, and America, where perpetual winter 

 prevails, and on the lofty mountains of the central portions 

 of those continents, that the sub-genus of the Ptarmigan 

 is to be found. The best known species, and most common, 

 is the Ptarmigan Grous, Lagopus of the ancients. This bird 

 is found in different countries of central Europe and Asia, 

 and is also equally extended through North America, where 

 it has suffered no alteration in its form, or in the distribution 

 of the colours of the plumage. Its manners have also 

 remained the same in these two parts of the globe. 



These inhabitants of the cold regions of the world dread 

 and avoid the genial influence of the sun. They are rarely 

 found on the declivities of mountains exposed to the south. 

 In summer they choose the sides on which they are sheltered 

 from sun and wind, which are equally objects of their appre- 



