98 University of California Publications in Zoology ["Vou 30 



Next to be considered is the Alaska race. The notable feature of 

 this bird is its bright ruddy tone of coloration, a character that is 

 evident in both sexes and in all stages of the summer plumages. As 

 compared with rupestris, the general tone of color throughout is 

 brighter and more reddish, and there is notable restriction of the dark 

 areas on individual feathers. 



The extreme manifestation of this race is reached on the north- 

 western and northern coast of Alaska, it occupies practically the whole 

 of the Alaskan mainland, and it extends eastward of Alaska along the 

 Arctic coast for some distance. In the latter region the duller color 

 of specimens from Baillie Island, Coronation Gulf, and Bathurst Inlet, 

 is to be interpreted, to my mind, as indicative of intergradation with 

 rupestris. 



Southeastward there is intergradation again with rupestris as 

 occurring in British Columbia, about at the Alaska- Yukon boundary 

 line. A series of seventeen skins from the vicinity of Eagle (U. S. Biol. 

 Surv. coll.), in the upper Yukon region, demonstrates such inter- 

 gradation satisfactorily. Certain selected skins from this series and 

 from the British Columbia aggregation are hardly to be distinguished, 

 and none of the Eagle specimens shows the extreme of ruddiness that 

 is seen in Alaskan birds from more northern points. The Eagle series 

 as a whole, however, certainly belongs with the northern Alaska sub- 

 species rather than with rupestris. On the southern coast there is 

 apparent intergradation with dixoni, as shown by skins from Kodiak 

 Island, Seward, and Prince William Sound. 



The matter of a name for the Alaskan bird requires careful con- 

 sideration. The race assuredly^s distinct from rupestris of the Hudson 

 Bay region, and as such is deserving of nomenclatural recognition. 

 To have been able to fix a type locality somewhere in northern Alaska 

 would have been desirable, for it is there that this form is developed 

 in its extreme manifestation, but as it happens, the boundaries of the 

 subspecies, as indicated by the specimens at hand, include a region 

 from which a form of rock ptarmigan has already been named. I refer 

 to Lagopus rupestris kelloggae Grinnell (1910, p. 383), type locality, 

 Montague Island, Prince William Sound. It is true that in describing 

 that subspecies Grinnell made detailed comparison with the same series 

 of birds from Eagle to which I have already referred, and which I 

 consider as belonging to the same race ; and he based his belief in the 

 distinctness of kelloggae partly upon the differences he could discern 

 between birds from Prince William Sound and those from Eagle. 



