PTARMIGAN. 
389 
2. t. 182. — Moni. Orn. Diet. — Ib. Supp Don. Br. Birds, 1. t. 12. — Rock- 
Grous, Lath. Syn. Supp. p 217. — Arct. Zool. 2. No. 184 — White Grous, 
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 
