362 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
mountains in Scotland.” On April 19, 1776, he enters that the 
ptarmigan on the hills are “beginning to change colour now.” 
Audubon says that they are abundant at Bras d’Or in winter, con¬ 
gregating “in flocks of immense numbers, now and then mixed with 
the smaller species.... {Lagopus rupestris). Their flesh is then 
salted for summer use.” He found the bird with young just out of 
the shell on July 5, 1833. Frazar says that this ptarmigan visits the 
southern coast regularly in winter, but retreats into the interior in 
summer. It was unusually abundant in the winter of 1886-7. In 
V 
February, 1885, two or three invoices of ptarmigan from Labrador were 
offered in the Boston markets (Ornith. and oologist, vol. 10, 1885, 
p. 32). Low found eggs on the upper Hamilton River on June 25th. 
Lagopus rupestris (Gmeh). 
Rock Ptarmigan; “Mountain Partridge”; “Rocker”; 
“Akkigik” (Eskimo). 
% 
Common permanent resident in the treeless region except in the 
extreme north. 
The Rock Ptarmigan is found in summer in the treeless region and 
on the hilltops except in the extreme north where it is replaced by 
Reinhardt’s Ptarmigan. In winter it migrates to the southern parts 
of the peninsula. Low says it is common in the valley of the Hamilton 
River during the winter, and that it leaves for the northward about 
April 15th. Audubon was informed by Mr. Jones that when the last 
of the Wild Geese had passed, the Rock Ptarmigan came in numbers 
about Bras d’Or and spent the winter on the wind-swept hilltops, 
repairing in the beginning of summer to the open grounds of the 
interior to breed. In another place he says: “They keep in great 
packs [in winter], and when disturbed are apt to fly to a considerable 
distance, shifting from one hill to another, often half a mile off.” 
Frazar says: “Mr. Jones, with whom I lived at Cape Whittle, and 
who was a very reliable man, told me that several years before he was 
on the shore of the Straits one day in early winter, and that flock after 
flock of these birds were flying in from across the water and that they 
lit upon the first land they could reach, evidently being greatly fatigued.” 
Dr. Grenfell told us that ptarmigan sometimes alight on vessels 
in the Straits of Belle Isle. Ptarmigan are easily killed and form an 
important food supply for the fur trappers in winter. 
