THE PTARMIGAN IN LAKELAND. 327 



ye said River, is left to ye judicious to conjecture. This territory 

 being part of ye large forest of Coupland (query if it is not now 

 reputed part of Enerdale forest) was formerly well replenished 

 wth Red Deer wch are now reduc'd to a small number, & upon 

 ye mountains & fells there is a store of black game and a certain 

 species of pouts wth white feathers <& other pied, wch is a rarity 

 particular to these fells, Skiddaw hill, & some other fells in this 

 County, & not to be found elsewhere (as we are informd) in any 

 other County of ye Kingdom." There is a note at the bottom of 

 the same page : — " These pouts are found upon ye Fells between 

 Shap & Kendal in Westmorland. Lancelot Jackson." I do not 

 know what species can be referred to, unless it be the Ptarmigan, 

 Lagopus mutus. I do not think that the writer referred to pied 

 or albino Red Grouse, because such specimens occur as irregularly 

 in the Lake District as elsewhere. Certainly this supposition, 

 that the Ptarmigan is the species indicated, fits in well with the 

 various facts explained in my previous notes upon this subject.* 

 With regard to the footnote, I may add that my friend the vicar 

 of Stainmoor, who is a native of Westmorland, assured me two 

 years ago that one of the last of the Lakeland Ptarmigan was 

 killed near Shap by one of his kinsmen ; such, at least, is the 

 traditional belief in his family. 



If the notice in the Denton MS. relates to the Ptarmigan, it 

 carries our information about local Ptarmigan backwards for sixty 

 years, a fact which in itself will be thought by some to strengthen 

 the argument. Upon the opposite page of the MS. to that above 

 quoted there is the following entry : — " As Bustards, wch are very 

 scarce, & only to be seen on Salisbury plane. They are a pretty 

 large Bird, & run as fast as a hare along ye ground for a con- 

 siderable time before they can take flight, & are very difficult to 

 be taken ; as they will seldom come wth in a gun shot. A Bustard 

 eats well, and has a fine flavour." This remark was apparently 

 called forth by the passage relating to the " species of pouts " on 

 the opposite page, but had no direct bearing upon the context. I 

 ought perhaps to add the reminder that the words " a certain 

 species of pouts " are underlined in the MS. Had the writer 

 referred to pied Grouse, he would hardly have called them a 

 "species of pouts," but would have written of them as moorfowl. 



* " The Ptarmigan in Lakeland," ' Zoologist,' 1893, pp. 97—99. 



