380 TRANS ACTIOXS, NAT ORAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



THE CAPERCAILLIE. 



Tetrao ttrog alius. 



[Read 30th March, 1886.] 



As an indigenous species, this lordly bird of the 

 forest had disappeared from the British fauna before 

 the close of the last century. Records show that 

 about 1745 it had become very rare, if not actually 

 extinct, in the districts of Scotland that had j^re- 

 viously afforded it shelter; and it is doubtful if at 

 that date a single pack of any importance lingered 

 in any of its ancient strongholds. Inverness is 

 generally supposed to have been the death-place 

 in Scotland of the species ; but from information I 

 received in 1872, on the publication of some notes 

 in the Aberdeen Free Press, I am inclined to think 

 that the sjDecies vanished among the ]3ine-trees of 

 Ballochbuie, which in the early part of the present 

 century were regarded as the strongest survival of 

 the ancient Caledonian forest. I learned that the 

 late Mr. James Giles, R.S.A., who was an excellent 

 observer and greatly interested in natural history, 

 had prepared an account of the occurrence of the 

 species on Deeside. This was based mainly on 

 oral information supplied by Sir Robert Gordon, of 

 Old Balmoral, an intimate friend who took a keen 

 interest in all matters relating to sport, and by his 

 gamekeepers. Mr. Giles' notes w^ere made at the 

 request of Dr. Macgillivray, for publication in the 

 Natural History of Deeside ; but they did not ajipear 

 in that work, not having been incorporated in the 

 manuscript before the death of the author. From 

 the back of a study of black-game in Avater-colours, 

 painted at Balmoral in 1830, I copied the following 

 which is in the handwriting of the artist : " Two 

 Coileach-coUie, Capercailzie, were shot in Ballochbuie, 

 on the occasion of a marriage rejoicing, in 1785, and 

 which Sir Robert is confident were the last of the 

 native birds heard of in Scotland. Pennant saw the 

 bird at Inverness in 1772." 



