86 University of California Publications in Zoology Uou 30 



Lagopus lagopus albus (Gmelin). Southern "Willow Ptarmigan 



Specimens of willow ptarmigan collected by myself in the Atlin 

 region include three adult males and one adult female in summer 

 plumage, two in natal down, two in juvenal plumage, twelve adult 

 males and five adult females in "winter plumage, preliminary" or 

 partly in that plumage, five immature males and twO' immature females, 

 mostly in first "winter plumage, preliminary," a total of thirty -two 

 skins (nos. 44680-44711). Additional specimens collected by Brooks 

 near Atlin and near Log Cabin were also at my disposal. 



In previous papers I have used the name alexand/rae for the willow 

 ptarmigan of British Columbia, but this additional mainland material, 

 together with a large series of alexandrae from the Alexander Archi- 

 pelago, southeastern Alaska (in the collection of George Willett), now 

 available, demonstrates differences that exist between the two. 



Riley (1911, p. 233) divided the willow ptarmigan of the North 

 American mainland into two subspecies, Lagopii^ lagopus ungavus 

 from the region east of Hudson Bay, and L. I. albus from the region 

 to the westward. Tlnga/vus he describes as having a heavier bill than 

 albus. The range of albus is given as "from the west side of Hudson 

 Bay, west through northern Alaska to eastern Siberia." 



Clark (1910, p. 52), on the other hand, had previously said of the 

 mainland birds (to which he gives the name Lagopus lagopus albus) 

 that ' ' all those from Labrador and central arctic America, with others 

 from Point Barrow, Kotzebue Sound, Cape Lisbourne, Kowak River, 

 Yukon River, and near St. Michaels, belong to a well-differentiated 

 race, with the beak very lar^je, high, and stout, the culmen strongly 

 arched, and usually with a prominent ridge from the inferior corner 

 of the maxilla to in front of the nostril. They are identical among 

 themselves, it being impossible to tell from the examination of any one 

 specimen whether it was taken in Alaska or in Labrador. ' ' 



Thayer and Bangs (1914, p. 4) described Lagopus lagopus koreni 

 from eastern Siberia, as differing from the willow ptarmigan of north- 

 ern Alaska in its still heavier bill. 



Differences which I had previously noted between British Columbia 

 ptarmigan and those from northern Alaska were not to be reconciled 

 by either Clark's or Riley's treatments of the races, and compelled 

 further comparisons. Through the courtesy of Dr. Alexander Wetmore, 

 Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I was enabled to 

 borrow from the United States National Museum three specimens of 



