WILLOW rTARMIGAN. 129 



the upper parts, so tliat the head above and sometimes the back of 

 the neck appears bhick, with rusty yellow spots. Back, shoulders, 

 upper tail coverts, and the two or four middle tail feathers, black, 

 and speckled with rusty yellow or pale yellow transverse streaks; 

 belly, wings, tail, and legs as in the male ; under tail coverts pure white. 



The male in summer dress differs from the female on account of its 

 rather larger body and black chin, which in the female is rusty 

 yellow; red brown colour on the neck and breast, where the female 

 has only rusty yellow and black, and by the altogether different under 

 tail coverts. Sometimes the red brown in the male is so dark as to 

 appear nearly chesnut, or black brown in very old males, but in the 

 younger birds the colour is lighter yellowish red brown, like the 

 female, so that the head and neck above are black, with small red 

 brown spots. Throat, sides of the head, front of the neck, and 

 breast, yellowish brown, with small black, transverse streaks; but the 

 female is always distinguished from the male through many or few 

 red brown feathers on the throat and breast. It is according to 

 Nilsson's experience that the males are more seldom met with in pure 

 summer dress than the females. Both moult in July and August, 

 when the speckled feathers are shed and others come in their places; 

 and Liljeborg notices that this species even has an autumn dress with 

 finer rusty yellow watering. 



The young, just before the autumnal moult, from specimens taken 

 from the 9th. to the 16th. of July, about six or seven inches long; 

 beak brown; claws grey; the naked pale red spot over the eyes has 

 already obtained its little dentated comb; legs covered with dirty 

 grey brown hair-like feathers down to the very claws. Head above 

 brown red, with a black spot on the crown, and a brown streak 

 along the back of the neck. The upper parts of the body speckled 

 with red brown and black, with white spots on the shoulders; breast 

 and sides rusty yellow, with black transverse bands. Wing feathers 

 grey brown, the outer finely — the inner ones more thickly — speckled 

 with rusty yellow. Tail with black and rusty yellow wavy transverse 

 streaks. 



By degrees the young become like the mother, as the brown wing 

 feathers in August are changed for white, and the black tail feathers 

 shoot out. The white wing feathers grow in this manner: — The outer 

 ones of the first and second order come at one time; the third and 

 fourth brown wing feathers are shed last in the young birds, generally 

 after the middle of August. In this or the foregoing month the old 

 birds shed their tail and wing feathers, and in the same or beginning 

 of the next month the horny covering on the claws. 



VOL. IV. s 



