File:British birds (1921) (14732352946).jpg

Identifier: britishbirds00huds (find matches)
Title: British birds
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Hudson, W. H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers), 1858-1925
Subjects: Birds -- Great Britain
Publisher: London, New York (etc.) Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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on the ground, anearth-lover, like his stay-at-home relation, the partridge ; yet in hiswide wanderings he crosses seas, vast deserts, and the loftiestmountain chains ; and by means of this migratory instinct he hasdiffused himself over the three great continents of Europe, Asia,and Africa. Ptarmigan.Lagopus mutus. Winter: pure white; a black line from the angle of the beakthrough the eye ; outer tail-feathers black ; above the eye a scarletfringed membrane; beak black ; tarsi and toes thickly clothed withwoolly feathers. Female : without the black line through the eyes.Summer: wings, under tail-coverts, two middle tail-feathers, andlegs white; outer tail-feathers black, some of them tipped withwhite; all the rest of the plumage ash-bro\vn marked with blacklines and dusky spots. Length, fifteen inches. In the British Islands the ptarmigan is at present confined tothe Highlands of Scotland, the * region of stones, and to some of itsislands, where, however, it is decreasing in numbers.
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PTABMIGAN 271 A peculiar interest attaches to this bird on account of its changeof plumage from brown in summer to snow-white in winter, and of thefact that it inhabits only the summits and slopes of high mountains.These two things—the white winter plumage and the mountain habit—have a close connection. The periodical change to white is acommon phenomenon in arctic animals, both birds and mammals,and all the species of grouse of the genus to which the ptarmiganbelongs assume the white dress in winter, with one exception—the redgrouse of the British Islands. Thus, in Britain we have two grouseof this group (Lagopus), one of which turns white like the conti-nental grouse, while the other keeps its brown dress throughout theyear. To explain this difference it must be assumed that bothspecies inhabited Britain at a period when its climate was anintensely cold one, and that both species changed their colour toprotective white in the season of snow. When the British climatechanged, an

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