. Our country: West. d alighting again a few yards off, suddenlybecame invisible. These were the Rocky Mountain ptarmigan ; and theirinvisibility is due to the close resemblance of their plumage tothe stones on which they stand. Either because their foesand visitors are very few, or because they trust to their colorsfor concealment, they are very tame. These birds change their plumage according to the seasonof the year. In summer they are gray like the granite, andii. winter, snow-white. Their nests are composed of leaves,grass and feathers, lying on the ground. They feed on leavesand seeds of
. Our country: West. d alighting again a few yards off, suddenlybecame invisible. These were the Rocky Mountain ptarmigan ; and theirinvisibility is due to the close resemblance of their plumage tothe stones on which they stand. Either because their foesand visitors are very few, or because they trust to their colorsfor concealment, they are very tame. These birds change their plumage according to the seasonof the year. In summer they are gray like the granite, andii. winter, snow-white. Their nests are composed of leaves,grass and feathers, lying on the ground. They feed on leavesand seeds of mountain plants. At the extreme top of the mountain, fourteen thousand feetabove the sea, the only living creature we could find was avery active spider, living under the stones and apparentlydoing well. Under the same stones, too, were the dead,frozen bodies of hundreds of thousands of locusts, which haddoubtless been beaten down by a storm on to the peak, andhad perished from cold. SOME ROCKY MOUNTAIN ANIMAI^S. 99. Ptarmigan. Butterflies, especially little blue and brown ones, wereplentiful. In one of singular delicacy and beauty, with large,transparent white wings on which were purple spots, Irecognized an old friend which I hadfirst met in the Alps of Switzerland, theParnassus or Apollo butterfly. A little gray-crowned finch, withpurplish wings, is another frequenter ofthe peak. It is often seen in flocksabout the miners cabin, picking up aprecarious livelihood. When a bigstorm is coming on, these birds betakethemselves to the valley and prairie,and so warn people of its approach. An eagle may occasionally soar overthe peak and alight, and a bear mayfind the mountain-top a convenient shortcut to some place he is bound for on histravels. But neither of these animals is, like the rest, a truedenizen of the mountain-top, both in summer and in winter. One of the most singular creatures in this region is theRocky Mountain rat. Not that anything is very peculiar inhis appearance
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectwestusdescriptionand
