File:American game-bird shooting (1910) (14732449756).jpg

Identifier: americangamebird00grin (find matches)
Title: American game-bird shooting
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Grinnell, George Bird, 1849-1938
Subjects: Game and game-birds Hunting
Publisher: New York, Forest and stream publishing company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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hite-tailed ptarmi-gan, the willow ptarmigan, when the wind is blowingfiercely and the snow driving, will often alight on adrift and quickly scratching a hole will crouch in it,thus protected from the wind and the drifting snow,which, however, may sometimes quite cover them over. In the summer of 1899, while the Harriman Alaskaexpedition was in Yakutat Bay, some of the memberswho were strolling up a ravine back of the sealing vil-lage of the Indians, came upon a female ptarmiganwith half a dozen young. The young ones did not atonce hide, and one of them was caught in the hand.The mother was anxious and uneasy for her little onesand walked about within three or four feet of us, andwhen the young one was caught she flew close about thecaptor. When walking on the ground she cluckedlike a setting hen, but with a deeper note; and afterher young had been released she called to them, warn-ing them to remain hidden, with the same note that adomestic hen uses to warn her chickens that she sees
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WILLOW PTARMIGAN IJJ a hawk in the sky. When at last we walked away,leaving the family alone, she also walked off into thealder bushes. The wings and a few breast feathersof this mother bird were white, but the rest of herplumage was black and tawny, much like that of afemale spruce grouse. Of this species at Ungava, in Labrador, Mr. L. M.Turner says: In the spring these birds repair, as the snow melts,to the lower grounds and prepare for the nuptial sea-son. About the ioth of April they may be heardcroaking or barking on all sides. A male selects afavorable tract of territory for the location of the nest,and endeavors to induce a female to resort to thatplace. He usually selects the highest portion of thetract, whence he launches into the air, uttering a bark-ing sound of nearly a dozen separate notes, thencesails or flutters in a circle to alight at the place whencehe started, or to alight on another high place, fromwhich he repeats the act while flying to his formerplace. Immediate

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