PTARMIGAN. 



389 



2. t. 182. — Mont. Orn. Diet.— Ib. Supp Don. Br. Birds, 1. t. 12 Rock- 



Grous, Lath. Syn. Supp. p 217 Arct. Zool. 2. No. 184 White Grcms, 



Bewick's Br. Birds, 1. p. t. 303. old male Selby, pi. 59. fig. 2. and 59*. 



p. 310.* 



This species weighs about twenty ounces ; length fifteen inches ; 

 bill black ; irides hazel ; the summer plumage is a mixture of light 

 brown and ash colour, marked with minute bars and small dusky spots ; 

 the head and neck with broad bars of black, white and rust colour ; 

 belly white ; wings white, with black shafts to the greater quills ; 

 some are more rufous on the head, supposed to be the male sex. In 

 the month of September it begins to change its plumage, and about the 

 middle of October it is of a pure white all over, except the shafts of the 

 wings, and tail, which last consists of sixteen feathers, the two middle 

 ones white, the rest black, with a little white on the tops of the second 

 feathers from the middle : in the male, also, there are black feathers 

 covering the nostrils, and from thence to the eyes. This description 

 is taken from the Ptarmigan of the Scottish highlands ; but in 

 those received from Norway, all the black feathers of the tail were 

 tipped with white, largely so in the middle feathers, but gradually de- 

 creasing till almost lost on the exterior ones. When the tail is closed, 

 the black is completely concealed by the coverts, which are white, and 

 reach to the end. 



*In some of the birds which are confined to those regions, where, 

 for one half of the year at least, the surface of the earth is covered 

 with boundless snow, an autumnal change in the plumage of both old 

 and young takes place. Here we perceive the Ptarmigan invariably 

 effect this curious, and we may add, most providential change ; for if 

 the young of these birds at first assumed their snowy winter plumage, 

 while yet the surface of the ground was not consonant with their co- 

 lour, few would escape the piercing eye of the falcon, or the eagle, in 

 the lofty and exposed situations they are found to inhabit. It has, 

 therefore, been wisely ordered, that these should at first appear like 

 their parents, in a mottled plumage, similar to the lichen-covered rocks 

 they frequent, and continue in this dress till the approach of winter, 

 when old and young become equally as white as the surrounding snow.* 



It is a very local species with us, confined to the loftiest mountains 

 of the north. Some few are yet found to the south of the Tweed, but 

 it is more plentiful on some of the highlands of Scotland, from which 

 it rarely or never descends, even in the severest season, when nothing 

 but snow is to be seen. 



It makes no nest, but deposits ten or twelve eggs on the bare ground, 

 amongst the rocks. These are of a dirty white, spotted and blotched 



