424 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TETRAO MUTUS. 

 COMMON PTARMIGAN. 



(Plate 20.) 



Tetrao mutus, Montin, Physiogr. SdUsk. Handl. Lund, i. p. 155 (1776-86) ; et auc- 



torum plurimorum — (Gould), (Begland 8r Oerbe), {Dresser), (Saunders), &c. 

 Tetrao lagopus, lAnn. apud Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. i. p. 290 (1787). 

 Lagopus mutus (Montm), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. ^c. Brit. Mm. p. 27 (1816). 

 Tetrao alpinus, Nils.^ Orn. Suec. i. p. 311 (1817). 

 Lagopus vulgaris, VieSl N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xvii. p. 1&9 (1817). 

 Tetrao montanus, Brehm, Lehrh. eur. Vog. i. p. 448 (1823). 

 Attagen montanus (Brehm), Kaup, Syst. Nat. pp. 170-177 (1829). 

 Lagopus montanus (Brehm), Brehm, Vog. Leuischl. p. 516 (1831). 

 Lagopus alpina (Nils.), Nils. Skand. Faun. ii. p. 98 (1835). 

 Tetrao rupestris, Gmel. apud Jenyns, Man. Brit. Vert. Amm. p. 171 (1835). 

 Lagopus cinereus, Macgill. Hist. Brit. B. i. p. 187 (1837). 



The Common Ptarmigan is a bird of the tundra ; and in the British 

 Islands is confined to those moors in Scotland which lie above the limit 

 of forest-growth. These localities are principally in the Highlands, and 

 extend to the Outer Hebrides ; but the Ptarmigan breeds on the mountain- 

 tops as far south as the island of Arran. Its reputed occurrences in Cum- 

 berland and Wales appear to be myths. It does not occur on the Orkney 

 or Shetland Islands. 



The Ptarmigan is a circnmpolar bird, breeding on the tundras of Europe, 

 Asia, and America, above the limit of forest-growth as far north as land 

 extends, and in a similar climate at high elevation's further south. In 

 Europe^ south of the Arctic circle, it breeds above the willow- and birch- 

 regions in the Dovre fjeld, on the outskirts of perpetual snow in the 

 Pyrenees, in the rhododendron region of the Alps, and on the Ural Moun- 

 tains wherever they rise too high for the growth of the willow and the 

 birch. In Asia, besides frequenting the shores of the Arctic Ocean, it 

 probably occurs on all the high mountain-ranges of Southern Siberia. 

 Finsch obtained it in the Chinese Altai range at an elevation of 6000 feet ; 

 Dybowsky and Radde found it on nearly all the mountain-ranges round 

 Lake Baikal at an elevation of about 9000 feet ; Captain Blakiston has 

 sent me an example from the main island pf Japan, obtained about 9350 

 feet above the level of the sea ; and Mr. Snow found it breeding on one 

 of the northernmost of the Kurile Islands. In America it is found from 

 Alaska to Greenland above the limit of forest-growth, and in the northern 

 portion of the Rocky-Mountain chain as far south as lat. 55°. It is also 

 found on Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla. 



