352 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



sandy spots are favourite resorts in the daytime ; but they pass the night 

 in holes in the snow. When pursued by a sportsman or bird of prey, they 

 often terminate their flight by diving precipitately into the loose snow, en- 

 deavouring to escape by working their way beneath the surface, which they do 

 with considerable celerity. Tn thick, windy, or snowy weather they are very shy, 

 and then often perch on the taller willows, when it requires a sharp eye to 

 distinguish them from flakes of snow. In the breeding-season they feed mostly 

 on the berries of the empetrum nigrum, vaccinium vitis idcea, and arbutus olpina, 

 which are exposed by the first thaws, and do not disappear until replaced by the 

 new crop. At the commencement of this period they begin to lose their snow- 

 white winter dress, the male changing first, his head and neck becoming red, 

 and, when viewed from a distance, contrasting so strongly with the white body, 

 as to appear as if they were stripped of their feathers and quite raw. The 

 beginning of June is the period of incubation, and the female then moults, the 

 delay being admirably suited to her habits and well calculated to insure her 

 safety. The male puts on his coloured plumage as soon as the rocks and emi- 

 nences most exposed to the sun become bare, and at a time when he is accus- 

 tomed to stand on a large stone and call in a loud, croaking voice to the females, 

 that hide themselves in their white dress among the unmelted snow on the 

 more level ground. Like most other birds that summer within the Arctic circle, 

 they are more in motion in the milder light of night than in the broad glare 

 of day. I had no opportunity of seeing the eggs. Mr. Hutchins says they are 

 whitish; while Temminck states that they are marbled and spotted with marks of 

 a dark venous-blood red on a soiled white or pale-reddish ground. 



DESCRIPTION 



Of the winter plumage. Male, killed in December, lat. Cl°. 



Colour, snow-white (when recently killed early in winter beautifully tinged with lake-red) ; 

 shafts of six greater quills brownish, and fourteen tail feathers pitch-black, tipped with white, 

 more conspicuously on the interior feathers*. Bill black. Small and slightly fringed super- 

 ciliary comb scarlet-red. Nails white, with dark bases. 



Form. — Third or fourth quill longest. Tail slightly rounded. Tarsi and feet covered, and 

 the latter thickly cushioned beneath with hair-like feathers. Nails thin and scoop-shaped. 



* There are also two pairs of white feathers incumbent on the middle of the tail and of equal length with it, which 

 by many ornithologists are reckoned as tail feathers. The middle pair of these have brownish shafts and want the 

 internal accessory downy feather, which the adjoining pair, the other tail coverts, and all the plumage of the body, 

 have. The language will vary, of course, according to the opinions of naturalists on this point. We count sixteen 

 feathers in the tail of the Willow Grouse, reckoning the middle incumbent pair. — R. 



