Not figured.
Bill much narrower, with the ridge on each side of the lower mandible
obsolete; claws (when entire) elongated, arched, with the sides
sloping, the edges thin and nearly parallel, the tip round; tail
short, even, of fourteen feathers, independently of the long incumbent
coverts. In winter, the plumage white, excepting the shafts of the
primaries, which are brown, and the tail-feathers, which are black,
narrowly tipped with white; male with a black loral band, extending
beyond the eye. In summer, the general colour of the upper parts, fore
neck, and sides, reddish-yellow, finely undulated transversely with
blackish-brown, and greyish-white; the bars on the head and neck
larger; the two long incumbent tail-feathers similar to those of the
back; the rest brownish-black, tipped with white; little white on the
lower parts, and only in patches, some greyish-white undulations
occasionally seen, tend to approximate the colouring to that of some
specimens of _Lagopus mutus_ of Scotland, but the prevailing tint is
not grey, as in that species, but brownish-yellow. Young similar to
the adult, with the bands larger; the fore part of the wings, the
primaries, secondary coverts, and abdomen, white.
_Male_, 14-3/4, wing, 8-1/4.
Melville Island. Churchill River.
Tetrao lagopus, Sabine, Richardson, &c.
Tetrao (Lagopus) mutus, Ptarmigan, Swains. & Rich. F. Bor.
Amer. v. ii. p. 350.
Common Ptarmigan, Tetrao mutus, Aud. Orn. Biog. v. v. p. 196.