380 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



brought within gun-shot by imitating the call 

 of the other sex. 



As soon as the female willow grouse wants to 

 lay, she seems to be most anxious to get rid of 

 the company of the male, and you will see him 

 chasing her all oyer the forest, she all the while 

 trying to avoid his importunities. 



Early in June the female commences to lay, 

 forming an artless nest on the bare stones, in the 

 heather, or under a small bush ; always, as far as I 

 could see, above the very top edge of the willow 

 region, but never on the snow fells. Here she 

 lays generally seven to eleven eggs, subject to 

 much variation in colour, but usually rusty yellow 

 covered all over with black or brown blotches and 

 spots heaped together. It is not easy to distin- 

 guish the egg of the ptarmigan from that of the 

 willow grouse by the colour, but the egg of the 

 ptarmigan is always a little the smallest, and more 

 pointed at both ends. I once found seventeen 

 eggs in a nest of the ptarmigan, and, if they were 

 the produce of two birds (which I doubt), only one 

 female was in the neighbourhood, and as she rose 

 from the eggs I shot her. You occasionally find 

 in the nest of the ptarmigan one small egg 9 

 scarcely larger than a musket-ball. This the Laps 

 never take, for they fancy it is the egg of a snake ! 



As long as the female continues to sit, the old 



