PTARMIGAN. 
95 
and some contemporary writers, these birds were 
once found on the hills of Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland ; and, we believe, recollections even exist 
of a few having been seen upon the high ranges 
which appear on the opposite border of Scotland. 
These have been for some time extirpated, and 
unless a few solitary pairs remain on Skiddaw, or 
some of its precipitous neighbours, the range of the 
Grampians will be its most southern British station. 
They inhabit the most barren and rocky spots, 
often where nothing is to be'seen but an interminable 
series of rugged rocks distributed in boulder masses, 
varying in size from huge lumps to pieces of a few 
inches in diameter. Here, during spring and sum- 
mer, the pairs and their broods remain almost the 
only inhabitants, and are discovered with the greatest 
difficulty, the mixture of the colours of the plumage 
forming a tint which harmonizes with that of the 
grey rocks around. At this season they are also 
tame and familiar, running before the intruder, and 
uttering their peculiarly low wild call, which is 
often the means of their discovery. In this way 
they will often reach the opposite edge of the rock, 
and will, as it were, simultaneously drop off ; but the 
expectation of finding them on some lower ledge 
will be disappointed, for they have, perhaps, by that 
time, sought for and reached the opposite side of 
the mountains, by a low, wheeling flight, as noise- 
less as the solitudes by which they are surrounded. 
The nest is made under the rocks and stones, and 
is very difficult to be found, for the female, on 
