332 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



old male, and the whole family keep together till 

 the autumn snow falls, when several families pack, 

 and large flocks are met with in the lower fell 

 tracts during the whole winter. 



So beautifully has nature adapted the different 

 changes of colour in the ptarmigan to the season 

 and aspect of the landscape which surrounds them, 

 that of all birds I think they are the most difficult 

 to see on the ground, as Thompson prettily ob- 

 serves : — " Of all British birds this is perhaps the 

 most interesting in consequence of the changes of 

 plumage, every one of them beautiful, through 

 which it passes. We hardly draw on the imagina- 

 tion by viewing its plumage as an exquisite minia- 

 ture of the seasonal changes which the mountain 

 undergoes — a miniature, too, drawn by a hand that 

 never errs. 



" In summer we look upon the beautiful mis> 

 ture of grey, brown, and black, as resembling the 

 three component parts of ordinary granite, fel- 

 spar, mica, and hornblend, among the masses of 

 which the ptarmigan generally resides. Late in 

 autumn, when snows begin to fall upon the lofty 

 summits, and partially cover the surface of the 

 rock, we find the bird pied with white, and in win- 

 ter, when they present a perfect chrysolite of snow, 

 it is almost wholly of the same pure colour. 5 ' 



I have marked young birds down to an inch on 



