586 



SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — GALLING— ALECTOBOPOBES. 



568. L. al'bus. (Lat. alhus, white. Pigs. 403, 404.) Willow GtKOUSE. Willow Ptarmigan, 

 Bill very stout and convex, its depth at base as much as the distance from nasal fossa to tip ; 

 whole culmen 0.75 ; bill black at all seasons. (J 9, in winter: Snow white; 14 tail-feathers' 

 black, white-tipped ; the middle pair (which most resemble and perhaps are true rectrices, hav- 

 ing no after-shafts) together with all the coverts, one pair of which reach to end of taU, white; 

 shafts of several outer wing-quills black; no black stripe on head. (J, in summer: The head 



Fig. 403. — Willow Ptarmigan, summer plumage, J nat. size. (From Brelim.) 



and fore parts rich chestnut or orange- brown, more tawny-brown on back and rump; the richer 

 brown parts sparsely, the tawny-brown more closely, barred with black ; most of the wings and 

 under parts remaining white. ? similar, wholly colored excepting the wings, the color more 

 tawny than in the $, and more heavily, closely, and uniformly barred with black. Length 

 15.00-17.00; wing about 8.00; tail 5.50. Arctic and Northern N. Am. from ocean to ocean, 

 into the northernmost U. S. Eggs very heavily colored, with bold confluent blotches of intense 

 burnt sienna color, upon a more or less reddish-tinted buff ground. All the eggs of birds of this 

 family are colorless when the shell first forms high in the oviduct, acquiring pigment as they 

 pass down; in the ptarmigan, where the coloring is so heavy, an egg cut from the pigment- 



