July, 1920 A NEW PTARMIGAN FROM MOUNT RAINIER 149 
Moose Pass, British Columbia, Moose Pass, Alberta, and Moose Branch of Smoky 
River, Alberta (one specimen from Henry House, Alberta), practically topotypes 
of leucurus, all in nuptial plumage, indicates that the dark areas in raimerensis 
average more blackish than in leucurus. In ‘the latter the shade is close to 
mummy brown (Ridgway, Color Standards, 1912), while in raimerensis they 
approximate one of the darker shades of blackish brown. The buffy portions of 
the feathers in rainierensis are paler than in leucurus, being, in the former, near 
light ochraceous-buff, while closer in the latter to ochraceous or ochraceous- 
tawny. In two male birds from Moose Branch of Smoky River, Alberta, and 
Fig. 34. NEST SITE OF PTARMIGAN ON RIDGE NEAR MCCLURE ROCK, ABOVE 
PARADISE VALLEY, 7,300 FEET, SEPTEMBER 26, 1919. THE SCATTERED 
SHELLS AT THE BASE OF THE LARGE ROCK IN THE FOREGROUND JUST 
ABOVE THE BLACK CROSS PRECISELY INDICATE THE POSITION OF THE 
NEST. THE PRINCIPAL PLANTS IN THE VICINITY ARE RED HEATHER, 
PHLOX, A SEDGE, AND THE TINY ALPINE LUPINE. 
Henry House, Alberta (nos. 222661 and 222655, U. 8S. Nat. Mus.), there is a 
light wash of pale buffy. A male from Moose Pass, Alberta (no. 222656, U. 8. 
Nat. Mus.) has the buffy scarcely indicated. Males of rainierensis are immact- 
late white, or have less suggestion of buffy than the Moose Pass male. Thus the 
contrast between the black areas and the white ground color is more vivid in the 
new subspecies than in leucurus. A specimen of lewcurus from Moose Branch of 
Smoky River, Alberta (no. 222661, U. S. Nat. Mus.) has some black-barred flank 
feathers as in no. 853 (collection of Stanley G. Jewett) from Mount Rainier; 
but while the Alberta example shows two or at most three distinct dark cross- 
bars on each feather the Rainier specimen has four dark cross-bars, and the 
cross-bars are narrower than in the Alberta example. 
