208 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vol. 24 



The series collected comprises four adult males, one adult female, 

 one in juvenal plumage, and one in natal down (nos. 39742-39747). 

 These birds are relatively gray colored, but not so ashy as Bonasa um- 

 bellus yukonensis, from the Yukon region (see Grinnell, 1916, p. 166). 

 I have had for comparison three specimens of Bonasa it. umbelloides 

 from points on the Saskatchewan and Athabasca rivers. Alberta, prac- 

 tically topotypes of that form, loaned me by the United States Biolog- 

 ical Survey. The Stikine River birds are of exactly the same type of 

 coloration. 



Of our series of five adults, three are in the gray phase, two in the 

 red. Apparently these color phases occur throughout the entire range 

 of the species Bonasa umbellus. The point arises as to whether the 

 confusion that exists between the subspecies umbelloides and togata 

 (ef. A. 0. U. Committee, 1910, p. 140), a relatively gray race and a 

 relatively reddish one, is not largely due to a misunderstanding of the 

 color variation within any one subspecies. No attempt has been made 

 by me to go thoroughly into this question, but it may be said that the 

 reddest umbelloides examined is a very different looking bird indeed 

 from the few grouse I have seen from eastern Canada, the habitat of 

 the reddish colored togata. 



The crop contents of two ruffed grouse from the Stikine region 

 (determined at the United States Biological Survey) are as follows: 



No. 39742, adult male. Percentage of vegetable matter, 100. Con- 

 tents of crop : 1 pupa of plant louse, many leaves and a few stems of 

 Populus trichocarpa (75 per cent), leaves, stems, etc., of Galium tri- 

 florum (25 per cent), 1 leaf of Artemisia, sp., and bits of leafy moss. 



No. 39748, adult male. Percentage of vegetable matter, 100. Con- 

 tents of crop : 105 leaves of Populus tremuloides and a few bud scales 

 of the same (90 per cent), 9 berries and a leaf of Viburnum paucifio- 

 rum (10 per cent), bits of vegetable debris. 



Lagopus leucurus leucurus (Swainson). White-tailed Ptarmigan 

 Met with at but one place, on a mountain above Doch-da-on Creek. 

 Here, on the heather covered slopes above the timber, two broods were 

 seen on July 11. Of one, the entire family was obtained, the adult 

 female and three downy young (nos. 39749-39752). The second lot, 

 a female with seven or eight young, escaped. 



"While we were camped at Glenora an acquaintance climbed Glenora 

 Mountain, nearby, and informed us that he saw a single ptarmigan 



