40 DICTIONARY OF NAMES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



metaphoric use may be cited in Cailleach=a.x\. old woman, and 

 cailleach-oidhche^=an owl, lit. " the old woman of the night." 

 There is however the word gab1iar^=db goat (but this is 

 a feminine noim) and also cap7dl^=a horse, which although 

 a masculine noun is at the present day limited in its appU- 

 cation to a mare. Mr. Harvie-Bro^^ii says that in Ai'gyle- 

 shire and Lochaber the bird is still knoA\Ti by the name 

 of " Capullcoille," which Macgillivi'ay in 1837 gave as a 

 Gaelic name for the species. This derivation, as given by 

 Yarrell, is supported by many authorities and references. 

 Saunders preferred gabur, a goat (with allusion to the 

 elongated chin-feathers of the male and his amorous 

 beha\dour in spring) and coille, wood. This latter will, of 

 course, suggest Lat. caper^ capri, a he-goat (cognate with 

 Eng. to caper) and the Gaelic coille, and I do not know 

 that the hybrid word would be so very improbable. Gesner's 

 " Capricalca " and " Capricalze " suggest that he derived 

 from the Lat. capri, a goat, and calca of course suggests 

 a kicking or capering goat. Merrett (1667) has "Capri- 

 calca, Capricalze Scotis," wliich of course is probably 

 copied from Gesner. In any case the metaphorical sense 

 is similar, i.e. " Old man of the wood," " goat of the wood," 

 etc. Other derivations have been suggested, but without 

 so much ground for their accuracy. The Erse name appears 

 to be Capal coile, " the Wood Horse, being the chief fowl 

 of the woods " (Shaw, " Hist. Prov." Moray, 1775). Jamieson 

 in liis great Scottish Dictionary spells it " Capercailye," a 

 variation which Mr. Har\de-Bro\\'n traces to Bellenden in 

 his translation of Hector Boethius, 1553. For further 

 researches into the origin and spelling of this most difficult 

 name see Mr. Harvie-BroAVTi's " Capercaillie in Scotland " 

 (1888). There is no doubt, however, that the best and 

 most correct name for the species, and a good EngHsh 

 one to boot, would be " Wood-Grouse," a name moreover 

 sanctioned by its usage in many of the older ornithological 

 works from Pennant (1766) to Montagu and on to Mac- 

 gillivray (1837). Pennant, however, while calling it Wood- 

 Grouse, states that north of Inverness it is knoMH by the 

 names of " Caper-calze " and " Auer-calze," and Macgillivi'ay 

 in 1837 stated it was known in Scotland by the name of 

 Capercailzie. It appears now to be flourishing in several 

 counties of Scotland, while in ancient times it could never 

 have been particularly common, as most of the references 

 to it in ancient books show. So far back as 1651, as recorded 

 in the " Black Book of Taymouth " (pp. 433-4), we find 



