45 



THE PTARMIGAN. 



White Grouse. 

 Tetrao lagopus, Linn. 



Is not known as indigenous, nor even as a visitant to Ireland. 



On the loftiest mountains of England — those of Cumberland and 

 Westmoreland, and, it is said, of Wales — this bird once found a home, 

 but has long ceased to do so. Within the British seas, Scotland and 

 her islands only can now claim it as a native species. That there is 

 not in any part of Ireland a continuity of mountains sufficiently ele- 

 vated to be the ptarmigan's abode, I was disposed to bebeve until 

 lately, and thus to account for its absence from the island. But hav- 

 ing ascertained in Islay that it always inhabits, though in very limited 

 numbers, the loftiest stony ridges of that island, and is common at all 

 times on the Paps of Jura, its absence from Ireland must be attributed 

 to some other cause, as in various parts of the latter kingdom are 

 extensive ranges of mountains of superior altitude to those of Islay 

 and Jura, and possessing granitic and schistose summits, such as 

 this bird chiefly frequents.* It is remarkable that the species should 

 thus at the present day be found in the two most southern islands, 

 which lie oceanward from the western mainland of Scotland, and so 

 near to Ireland as to be almost daily visible from her shores ; yet that 

 there is no record (at least none known to me) of the ptarmigan having 

 at any period been a denizen of our soil. 



The want of such a bud is to be regretted, associated as it is in the 

 mind with the sublimity of nature. Its favourite haunt is on the lofty 

 mountain summit where rarely any human being, except the lonely shep- 

 herd, intrudes upon the solitude ; or where perhaps once or twice in the 

 year the adventurous naturalist or sportsman may be tempted to wander. 

 In ignorance of man's evil intents against them, a family of ptar- 

 migan will admit of his near approach, walk off before his dogs, or tak- 



* The present keeper at Ardimersy, Islay, when once accompanying the " young 

 laird " there, shot a ptarmigan, which, to his astonishment, appeared on the fence of 

 a stubble field, in open weather, close to a farm-bouse, and two or three miles 

 from the nearest mountain-top. Islay is more southern than any Scottish island 

 which I have seen named as the abode of the species. A gentleman has assured 

 me of his shooting several of these birds in autumn so far south on the mainland as 

 a mountain- top near Dunoon, on the Clyde, in the wild district of Cowal. 



