Identifier: keytonorthameric02coue (find matches)
Title: Key to North American birds. Containing a concise account of every species of living and fossil bird at present known from the continent north of the Mexican and United States boundary, inclusive of Greenland and lower California, with which are incorporated General ornithology, an outline of the structure and classification of birds, and Field ornithology, a manual of collecting, preparing, and preserving birds
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Coues, Elliott, 1842-1899
Subjects: Birds -- North America Birds -- Collection and preservation
Publisher: Boston, D. Estes and Company
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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L. rupestris (Lat. rupestris, relating to rupis, a rock; rupestrine) ROCK PTARMIGAN. ... It is a near relative of the European L. mutus or alpinus, indistinguishable in winter plumage, separable in summer. In North America its breeding range is practically coincident with its general distribution. In the Barren Grounds, of which the Rocker is so characteristic, the eggs are laid in June and July; they resemble those of lagopus, but average fewer, usually 6-10, rarely more; they are also darker and rather smaller: size about 1.70 X 1.18. "The summer plumage is assumed at variable periods of
746 SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — GALLINÆ — ALECTOROPODES.
the months of April, May, and even in early June, according to the locality. The moult for the summer is usually shown first on the head and neck, followed by the lower back, sides, breast, middle back, flanks, and abdomen, in the order named. The abdomen and chin are the last areas to show the complete moult. The parts named also assume, in the order given,the white winter plumage. During the time of the summer plumage scarcely a single day passes that the general color of the feathers is not modified by the appearance or loss of some feather." (Turner.) Hence the difficulty if not impossibility of establishing races of this species upon color, as the amount of barring, vermiculation, or nebulation with dusky, tawny,

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Fig. 502. — Evermann's Ptarmigan.
and gray is so rapidly changing in the same individuals; and birds taken at different dates in summer, in the same locality, may differ from one another more than specimens from different regions, representing several alleged varieties, are always found to do. Rock Grouse, of Pennant and Latham; Tetrao rupestris Gm. 1788; Aud. Orn. Biog. iv, 1838, p. 483, pi. 368. T. (L.) rupestris Sw. and Rich. F. B. A. ii, 1831, p. 354, pl. 64. L. rupestris Leach, 1817; Aud. B. Am. v, 1842, p. 122, pl. 301; Elliot, Mon. Tet. 1865, pl. 23; and of authors generally, as of all editions of the Key; A. 0. U. No. 302. But L. mutus var. rupestris Ridgw. in Bd. Brew. and Ridgw. N. A. B. iii, 1874, p. 462.
TETRAONIDÆ: GROUSE. 747
L. r. reinhardti. (To J. Reinhardt, the well-known naturalist.) Reinhardt's Rock Ptarmigan. Greenland Ptarmigan. As before; ♂ in summer less regularly and more finely barred above on a grayish-brown ground. Greenland and opposite shores ...

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