394 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
the haunt of these little birds he is very likely to be 
disappointed. Either, on the one hand, they trot along 
before him, refusing to rise on the wing, or else they 
are so shy that long before he is within gunshot they 
take wing, and fly off along the mountain side, only 
to repeat this operation when again approached. 
Like all the grouse, the white-tailed ptarmigan, when 
almost fully grown, are very gentle and unsuspicious, 
and may be approached within a few feet; but as the 
nights grow colder and the autumn storms begin, they 
grow more and more shy. Finally, in September or 
October, they are wild birds, often rising at good gun- 
shot distance, flying thirty or forty yards, and, alight- 
ing on the hillside or on some great rock, walk about 
with head and tail held high in air, in an attitude of 
great suspicion. If by chance they are closely ap- 
proached when on a steep hillside they often throw 
themselves into the air and scale downward with great 
swiftness, sometimes continuing their flight across a 
narrow valley, so that it is quite impossible to follow 
them. 
In the days of their youth, before they have grown 
shy, many are killed in the mining districts of the high 
mountains with stones or clubs, by miners going to 
and from their work. 
In Newfoundland, the willow ptarmigan, and occa- 
sionally the Newfoundland form of the rock ptarmi- 
gan, used to afford superb shooting over dogs; but as 
with so many other game birds in many places, 
they have been so overshot there that it is now reported 
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