Ptarmigan are generally walked up by a line of guns when a party can all
be got to ascend to the high tops inhabited by these birds, Alpine
hares, and little life besides, except for the eagles, which greatly
appreciate both bird and mammal. The eagle has been known to strike down
a ptarmigan in the air, although it probably catches them generally on
the ground. The reason why dogs are not much used for ptarmigan is that
the almost constant foot scent of hares leads to false pointing or else
to hunting their lines; both tricks are equally objectionable, and show
that the dogs have only been partially broken, possibly in the absence
of hares. In a hare country it is quite easy to have high-couraged dogs
that will point hares in their seats but will not notice the foot
scents. These are so seldom seen, though, that it is best, in their
absence, to walk up or to drive ptarmigan. They are in a sense the
wildest of British game, but it is a wildness that induces hiding for
safety rather than flight. Their protective coloration enables them to
deceive their greatest enemies, the eagles and the falcons, and they
naturally rely on the device of absolute stillness to escape detection
by other creatures. Generally they fly away at sight of an eagle, but
lie stone close when a falcon comes in view. The eagle can sometimes
kill them on the wing, but this is more frequently the falcon’s method,
and the birds know it. In winter they change to white, and the snow
affords them protection, not only because of its similar whiteness, but
also because they bury themselves in it for safety as well as for food.
In summer they are grey and white, showing grey from above and looking
white on taking flight. It is a mistake to say that they feed upon
heather; the majority of ptarmigan live winter and summer above the
highest altitude of the heather. The number of birds is nowhere very
great, nor could they be expected to increase very much; for the
vegetation on which they mostly live is scanty on their chosen rocks,
and is indeed the moss which grows on these apparently almost bare
surfaces. Were numbers large, ptarmigan would be more valued as game
birds, because of their greater activity in flight than the red grouse.
Often they fly like rock pigeons leaving their cliff caves, and, unlike
the red grouse, they frequently make very steep angle flights at a very
great velocity down hill, and then they can twist and swerve and curve
in a wonderful manner. To be seen at their best they must be visited in
October, but it is dangerous work when a chance exists of a snowstorm.
Ptarmigan are found all round the Arctic circle, although some people
think the American variety a different species. The birds sold in the
game-dealers’ shops as ptarmigan are nearly always willow grouse—the
rype of Norway. There the ptarmigan is the Fjeldrype, and in Sweden it
is the Fjallripa. Its scientific title is _Lagopus mutus_. The ptarmigan
is monogamous, and has from 8 to 15 eggs. Neither nests nor birds are
easy to find in the breeding season, and on the most open spaces, where
there is no covert whatever, the bird frequently escapes observation;
and, besides, the croak of the bird is very misleading, and will rarely
assist in the discovery of the locality of origin of the voice. Probably
the rocks assist this ventriloquism. Ptarmigan are not found in England
or Ireland, and no farther south than the Grampians on the mainland, and
Islay in the isles of Scotland. The largest bag ever made, as far as is
known to the author, was the 122 obtained by the late Hon. G. R. C. Hill
at Auchnashellach on 25th August, 1866. But the 142 obtained in the year
on the whole of the Duke of Sutherland’s property in 1880, when over
50,000 grouse were shot, much nearer shows how little sport may be
expected even on good ground. Ptarmigan, in common with grouse and
partridges, feign lameness to draw an enemy away from their young.