After nesting-time, they first appear in coveys or broods about the middle of August; the young birds are then about three parts grown, strong on the wing, and afford admirable sport. At this time they live by the margins of small streams, where there is thin timber and underbrush, with plenty of sandy banks to dust in. About the middle of September and on into October they begin to pack; first two or three coveys get together, then flock joins flock, until they gradually accumulate into hundreds. On the first appearance of snow they begin to perch, settling on high dead pine-trees, the _dead_ branches being a favourite locality; or, should there be any farms, they pitch round on the top of the snake-fences. At the Hudson’s Bay trading-post at Fort Colville there were large wheat-stubbles; in these, after the snow fell, they assembled in vast numbers. Wary and shy they are now, and most difficult to get at; the cause being, I apprehend, the snow rendering every moving thing so conspicuous, it is next to impossible for dogs to hunt them. Their food in the summer consists principally of berries—the snowberry (_Symphoricarpos racemosus_), and the bearberry (_Arctostaphylos uva-ursi_). The leaves of this latter plant are used to a great extent, both by Indians and traders, to mix with or use instead of tobacco, and called _kini-kinick_; the leaves being dried over the fire, and rubbed up in the hand to powder, and smoked in a pipe. The wild roseberries (_Rosa blanda_ and _Rosa mirantha_), and many others, usually designated huckleberries, constitute the food generally consumed by these birds during summer and autumn; although I have often found quantities of wheat-grains and larvæ of insects, grass-seeds, and small wild flowers in their crops. Their thickly-feathered feet enable them to run upon the snow with ease and celerity, and they dig holes and burrow underneath it much after the fashion of the ptarmigan. During the two winters we spent at Colville, flocks of these birds congregated about the corn-stacks and hayricks at our mule-camp, and at the Hudson’s Bay trading-post, Fort Colville. The temperature at that time was often down to 29° and 30° below zero, and the snow three feet deep; yet these birds did not at all appear to suffer from such intense cold, and were strong, wild, and fat during the entire winter, which lasted from October until near April before the snow entirely cleared.