31 
Spring females are strongly barred below and broadly featheredged 
above in decided pattern which cannot be easily obscured by the rapid 
wear that quickly confuses other plumages. This plumage presents the 
racial characters more plainly and convincingly than any other and is the 
main reliance for subspecific study of the species. Groups I and II show 
the difference between yellow and grey races in unmistakable degree. 
The distinction is obvious at a glance and does not need massed specimens, 
careful illumination, or critical judgment for demonstration. 
Group I is characterized by strong ochre barring below on breast and 
flanks, and back feathers with broad rusty edgings. 
Group II is generally greyish as compared with the above; the ochre 
below is replaced by white or creamy white. The back is much darker, 
owing to reduction of or lack of light edgings. These edgings are much 
whiter than in group I, and seem to wear away much more rapidly — often 
to disappearance; they seem to disintegrate even before the feather has 
fully matured. 
The following individuals demand particular remark. No. 1 is rather 
dark and less yellowish, it might almost equally well go in group II. It 
approaches Nos. 22, 23, 32, 33, and 37. No. 12 is identified asL. r. kelloggae 
by H. S. Swarth and as such is listed in his review of the species (antea). It 
is ultra-typical of the yellow group and practically identical with No. 14 
from the extreme east. 
No. 14 is an ultra-typical yellow bird with a large amount of last winter's 
white remaining on abdomen. It is almost identical with No. 12 as above. 
The occurrence of this typical, high northern bird in this southern locality 
is inexplicable. That it was breeding and with downy young (No. 88) 
accentuates the problem. It is notable that No. 34, geographically the 
next adjacent specimen, also a probable left-over from migration, and 
the most southern occurrence of the rock ptarmigan in America, is per- 
fectly typical of the grey group, as would be expected. 
In spite of Dr. Joseph Schmitt (Monographie de l'tle d'Anticosti, 
Paris, 1904) to the contrary, it does not seem likely that the rock ptarmigan 
was ever a regular or normal breeder on Anticosti. The willow ptarmigan, 
which Schmitt does not mention at all, is common along the whole adjacent 
mainland coast in winter, still occasionally breeds there (Lewis, Can. 
Field Nat., XLII, page 192 (1928) ), is a far more likely breeder on Anticosti, 
and is probably the basis of Schmitt’s statement. It is very improbable 
that a distinctive island form could have been produced with such slight 
isolation as this island offers, and the fact that the specimen which seems 
to substantiate Schmitt's report shows high northern instead of southern 
characters only emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual occurrence. 
In present view of the case I can only regard this bird as a left-over winter 
migrant from the north breeding far south of its normal range. No. 18 is 
a strangely pale bird with the yellows largely creamy and like nothing else 
in the collection. It may possibly be considered with Nos. 76, 77, and 78, 
also erratics, as possibly representatives of an undescribed race in 
migration dispersal. 
