COURTSHIPS OF LABRADOR BIRDS 
ducing at such short range an almost painful 
sensation: the wings were immediately re- 
covered, and another stroke, a trifle quicker 
than the first, was succeeded by another still 
quicker, until the wings vibrated too fast to be 
followed by the eye, producing the well-known 
terminal roll of muffled thunder.”’ 
Although this performance is very different 
from the fluttering flight of the singing bird, yet 
there are two other Labrador birds that illus- 
trate very well, it seems to me, the stages in its 
evolution. One of these is the willow ptarmi- 
gan, which, we were told came to the southern 
coast in great numbers every five or six winters. 
In this season the bird is snow-white with the 
exception of a black tail, but in summer it is 
brown and matches so well its surroundings that 
it is almost impossible to see it on the ground. 
In the love season it does not drum like its 
cousin the ruffed grouse, neither does it sing, in 
fact it tries to do both, but, as is often the case 
under these circumstances, it falls between two 
stools and does neither well. Mr. L. M. Turner 
thus describes the nuptial performance of the 
willow grouse, as he observed it in Labrador: — 
“In the spring these birds repair, as the snow 
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