ON THE ORNITHOLOGY OF LAPLAND. 319 



up on each side, and along this hedge they stick 

 up birch branches covered with fruit and catkins 

 as a bait for the birds. They set these as soon as 

 sufficient snow has fallen, and as more snow falls 

 they raise the snare. ISFilsson says that ptarmigan 

 are occasionally taken in these snares, but from 

 what I could hear this is never the case at Quick- 

 iock. A Lap settler will perhaps own several 

 hundred of these snares. 



In July I weighed one willow grouse and two 

 ptarmigan. The willow grouse weighed just 16oz., 

 or scarcely so much as the red grouse, but the two 

 ptarmigan only 20oz. English. 



When we first arrived on the fells (April 16) 

 some of the ptarmigan were still in pure white 

 winter dress ; others were just beginning to assume 

 the summer plumage, and here and there a summer 

 feather was shooting out on the head and neck. 

 In about a month's time many of the summer 

 feathers had appeared in different parts of the 

 body of both males and females, and about May 

 22 the ovaries of many of the females were in a 

 very forward state, but the change in plumage 

 seemed to go on slowly. On June 5 we took our 

 first nest, with ten eggs, and the old female (which 

 I shot as she rose) showed nearly as much of the 

 winter as of the summer plumage. By June 10 

 the males were, however, greyish-black on the 



