338 A SPBING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



by the sides of the fells, never in the open ; the 

 eggs generally from eight to eleven ; and, as soon 

 as the young can fly, the old females take them up 

 higher on to the fell sides, but never above the 

 willow and birch region — i.e., never on to the fells 

 themselves, although I have often found them in 

 the fell valleys in July, by the side of water-courses 

 where the willow luxuriates in rich profusion. 



The food of the willow grouse during the sum- 

 mer consists almost entirely of the leaves of several 

 plants, especially of the lesser willow (Salix her- 

 bacea, Lin.), which covers all the low meadows 

 and marshy grounds at the bottom of the fells ; 

 the bleaberry (Vaccinkim myrtilhis, Lin.), and the 

 flowers and seed of the viviparous knot-grass 

 (Polygonum vivvp avium, Lin.), which is on this ac- 

 count called in Norway "rype gras;" during the 

 autumn their principal food consists of the berries 

 of the bleaberry, etc. ; and in the winter and spring 

 they seem entirely to live on the catkins of the 

 birch (both the dwarf and the common), and the 

 stalks of the bleaberry bushes. 



I have killed the willow grouse on the sides of 

 the (Estmark fells, in about 60° N". lat., where they 

 are tolerably numerous, and this I take it is their 

 most southern limit in Sweden (the most southern 

 range of the ptarmigan in Sweden appears to be 

 about 62° K lat.) 



