BIRDS — TETRAONIDAE — LAGOPUS AMERICANUS, 
637 
feathers ; the lower jaw with a prominent ridge on the sides helow. Tail rather short, scarcely 
more than half the wings. First quill intermediate between sixth and seventh. 
Color in winter pure white with a faint rosy tint, even including the tail feathers. The 
shafts of the larger primaries brown. 
The only specimens I have seen are in winter dress. The summer plumage is said by 
Eichardson to be varied with blackish brown and ochraceous. 
The two skins of this bird before me, and probably the only ones in any American museum, 
were collected in January, 1858, by Captain K. B. Marcy, on his march from Fort Bridger 
across the Rocky mountains to Santa F6, in search of provisions and animals for the Utah 
army, under Colonel Johnston. They were met with near the summit of the mountains, 
probahly near the Cochetope Pass. 
List of specimens. 
Catal. 
No. 
Locality. 
When collected. 
Whence obtained. 
Collected by— 
Length. 
Stretch 
of wings. 
Wing. 
10081 
10082 
West side Rocky nits. , near 
Cochetope pass, lat. 39°. - 
. _ .la 
Jan. — , 1858 
Capt. Marcy, U. S. A. 
do 
Dr. Anderson . 
13.00 
21.00 
7.00 
LAGOPUS AMERICANUS? Aud. 
American Ptarmigan. 
?" Tetrao lagopus, Sabine, E., Suppl. Parry's 1st Voyage, p. exevii. — Sabine, J., Franklin's Jour. 682. — Rich. 
App. Parry's 2d Voyage, 350." 
Telrao [Lagopus) mutus, Rich. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 350. 
Tetrao mutus, Aud. Orn. Biog. V, 1839, 196. 
Lagopus americanus, Aud. Syn. 1839, 207.— Ib. Birds Amer. V, 1842, 119 ; pi. 300. 
A ptarmigan, supposed by some authors to be the Lagopus mutus or alpinus of Europe, is 
mentioned by authors as found on Baffin's bay and Churchill river. Mr. Audubon, on an 
examination of specimens brought from those countries, considers them distinct, but gives no 
appreciable characters to separate them. The differences are probably very slight, if they 
really exist. The European or Scotch ptarmigan has the bill slenderer than in L. alius, 
though the size is scarcely less. The summer plumage, however, is very different, the tints 
being mottled gray, without any of the reddish brown or yellow of the other. The winter 
dress is white ; the male with a black line from the bill through the eye. 
It is quite probable that some of the specimens enumerated under the head of L. rupestris 
really belong here. 
