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PTARMIGAN. 
Lagopus vulgaris, FLEMING. 
cs mutus, SELBY. Govump. 
Tetrao lagopus, PENNANT. Monraeu. 
Lagopus. Lagos—A hare. Pous—A_ foot. Vulgaris—Common. 
Tuis beautiful bird, the Ptarmigan of the Gaelic, whose 
snowy whiteness puts one in mind of the far-famed Campanero, 
the Bell-bird of the Brazils, belongs to Northern Europe, 
Asia, and America, even within the Polar circle, as the 
accounts of the Arctic expeditions so often testify, extending 
also in its range to more southerly districts—Germany, Savoy, 
Switzerland, and even to Spain and Italy, from Norway, 
Lapland, Sweden, and Russia, and the Arctic regions. 
It is said also to have been an inhabitant formerly of 
- Wales and the north of England, but it has followed the 
fortunes of the Gael to the Highlands of Sutherlandshire and 
other counties, and there finds a comparative security, which 
across the ‘Border’ it could no longer count upon. In 
Westmoreland and Cumberland, in the neighbourhood of 
Keswick, it was formerly to be found. 
In the Hebrides also it occurs, in the Island of Harris, 
and, I believe, in South Uist, Lewis, Skye, Mull, and Jura. 
In Orkney it existed till a few years ago in Hoy, but wholesale 
slaughter effected their extermination. Mr. Dunn met with 
it in Shetland. 
True ‘Children of the mist,’ and free as the pure air they 
breathe, the Ptarmigans frequent the upper parts and summits 
of the highest mountains, where utter desolation reigns around, 
and nature is seen in the most wild and savage beauty. These 
scenes they never leave—the mountaineer’s love for his native 
mountain is stronger than any other ‘Love of one’s country.’ 
In extremely severe and stormy weather they come a little 
lower down, or take advantage of the shelter of the clefts 
