BREEDING HABITS OF THE WILLOW-GROUSE. 243 



much more conspicuous than the Red Grouse, owing to its 

 skewbald colouring. Birds shot in the middle of July were still 

 moulting their winter plumage. 



On July 25th I surprised a pair of Grouse and their brood in 

 a swampy valley, much frequented by Red-throated Pipits and 

 mosquitoes. The " cheepers," which were partly fledged, 

 scattered into the willow scrub. However, I captured a couple 

 and imprisoned them in my camera case. Their calls soon 

 attracted the old bird, who was watching from a knoll not far 

 away, and she ran up to the spot. By the use of a reflex 

 camera and a long-focus lens, I was able to secure a series of 

 pictures of her as she crept round me, puzzled to locate the 

 whereabouts of her distressed brood. Meanwhile, the male bird 

 also approached and testified the greatest anxiety, but he never 

 came near enough to allow me to photograph him. While the 

 young broods are fledging, they are never found far from the 

 neighbourhood of water. Probably, like Plovers, they require to 

 drink and bathe frequently. 



Mr. A. Trevor-Battye (' Ice-bound on Kolguev,' p. 430), 

 writing of the habits of this bird on Kolguev Island, says : " On 

 July 30th saw eight cocks together, and from then onwards they 

 continued packing." On the Yenesei I never saw more than 

 two Grouse together at the one time, even in August, when the 

 young birds must have been strong upon the wing. As I have 

 said, the birds were not very abundant. Each likely locality 

 seemed to be inhabited by a single family, and they may well 

 either have escaped notice in that immense country, or else 

 migrated at once to the highlands inland, in search of ripening 

 berries. 



I also found the Rock-Ptarmigan (Lagopus rupestris) on the 

 tundra about twenty miles from Golchika on July 19th. Two 

 males and a female were shot together from among the willow 

 scrub on a high ridge of the tundra. The birds were very tame, 

 and I saw no sign of nest or young, although the female had an 

 incubation spot. This was the only time that I saw the 

 "malenki Kuropatka," as the Siberians call it, but Seebohm, 

 who visited Golchika in July, 1877, and whose list of birds of 

 the district is not very comprehensive, records it from close to 

 the river. 



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