THE PTARMIGANS 



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Ptarmigan 1 — in Colorado sometimes called the 

 "White Quail," — which lives in the Rocky 

 Mountains from the Liard River, British Co- 

 lumbia, to New Mexico. It is said that another 

 species (the Willow) does occasionally wander 

 down into northern New England. The ma- 

 jority of the species are found in Alaska, but 

 the Rock Ptarmigan covers nearly the whole of 



Lena River, their last food was one of these 

 birds, shot with a rifle by Alexy, the Eskimo. 

 In northern Greenland and Grinnell Land 

 Peary and Greely ate it, and in the Kenai 

 Peninsula, flocks of it were photographed by 

 Dall DeWeese and others. 



This bird is almost constantly busy in chang- 

 ing its clothes. In the spring it goes by slow 





Summer plumage. 



Winter plumage. 



WILLOW PTARMIGAN. 

 Drawn from photographs made in Alaska by Dall DeWeese. 



Arctic America from Alaska to Labrador and 

 Greenland. Two of its subspecies inhabit New- 

 foundland. 



The Willow Ptarmigan 2 may well be chosen 

 as the typical representative of the whole group, 

 for its distribution covers the Arctic lands en- 

 tirely around the pole. When De Long and his 

 party fought starvation at the mouth of the 



1 La-go'pus leu-cu'rus. Length, about 12 inches. 



2 La-go'pus lagopus. Length, about 14 inches. 



degrees from winter white to chestnut brown, 

 barred with black. By July the dark plumage 

 of midsummer is fully developed; but not for 

 long. By the first of September, the trouble 

 begins once more, and feather by feather the 

 plumage gradually changes to snowy- white. In 

 winter the legs and feet of Ptarmigans generally 

 are heavily clothed with feathers, and often 

 only the ends of the toes are visible. 



As might be expected, this bird and its rela- 



