The ALPINE or GREY PTARMIGAN (_Lagopus Alpinus_ or _mutus_)--see Coloured Plate XXVIII.--may be said to vary its plumage every month during the summer. At all seasons, however, the belly, lower tail-covers, exterior wing-covers, quills, and tarsi are white, the tail is black, and the quills streaked with black. About the middle of April other black feathers begin to make their appearance, and the entire plumage becomes, as it were, chequered. By May the head, throat, back, and upper feathers of the wing-covers are more or less variegated with reddish brown and white. As the autumn approaches the feathers gradually change, and by the end of September are of a light grey, dotted with black, and the reddish streaks on the neck and head almost white. In the female these parts are marked with undulating reddish and black lines, the bands being much broader and more clearly defined. In winter the plumage of the male is entirely of a snowy white, except the few black tail-feathers; these latter also show a light border. Occasionally specimens are met with that have retained some of these dark feathers through the cold season. The Alpine Ptarmigan, or Fjall Ripa, as it is called, is met with in Scotland, and abounds in Scandinavia, in the higher ranges of that peninsula, up to the vicinity of the North Cape. "The Fjall Ripa," says Professor Rusch, in a letter to Mr. Lloyd, "is found so far south in the province of Christiansand, that its southern limits can certainly be placed in latitude 58° 40´. It occurs wherever the mountains rise above the limits of the dwarf birch, with steep precipices and stone rubble. On mountains in the southern districts of Norway, at the height of 3,000 to 3,500 feet, the sportsman may be tolerably certain of meeting with one pair or more of these birds." During the year the plumage varies very considerably, being almost in a constant state of moult. By all accounts, this species puts on at least three different dresses in the course of the year. The tail-feathers are always black, and the male has a small black mark from the base of the bill to the temple; but with these exceptions the winter dress of both sexes is white. The male begins to assume his spring dress about the middle of April, the female a few days later, and usually completes it by the end of May or beginning of June; the information respecting the autumnal moulting is not so precise. In the beginning of September, according to Barth, they have assumed the greater part of their autumnal dress, which about the middle of the same month begins to change into the winter plumage in such a manner that the autumn moulting is simultaneously continued.