174 STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 



mother bird sits a whole month, and is quite forsaken by her partner, who 

 skulks about in the wood, and renews his plumage, while she is busy with 

 her domestic cares. 



The capercailzie lives a great deal upon the ground, unless the snow 

 happens to be deep. He sits also on the uppermost boughs of his favourite 

 pine-trees, and in the night roosts there. Sometimes, however, if the weather 

 is very severe, he gets quite into the snow, and buries himself He can fly to 

 rather a great height, considering the tribe to which he belongs, and can keep 

 on the wing for several miles. 



The birds are sometimes kept in Sweden in aviaries, and made so tame 

 as to eat out of their owners' hand. Their food consists of oats and the usual 

 leaves and shoots of the pine. And large branches are put into their cages 

 once a week. And in England the same experiment has been made, and a 

 brace of the birds have not only lived in confinement, but reared a family 

 of six young ones. When the young birds are reared in this manner, they 

 become as tame as the cocks and hens, and may be allowed to go at large. 

 At the same time, the cock never loses his native courage, and will often fly 

 at people and peck them. 



There was an old cock that for many years was well known on a certain 

 estate in Sweden. When he heard the sound of people's footsteps, he would 

 come out of his lair and peck their legs and feet, flapping his wings all the 

 time. And another bird lived in a wood through which a public road passed. 

 Whenever a person went by on the road, out would come the capercailzie, 

 and make an attack, and it was not easy to drive him away. At length he 

 was caught and carried from the place, but he was so fierce that the man 

 who took him was obliged to let him go, and in a day or two he was seen 

 at his old haunts. 



In the northern forests the sport of hunting the capercailzie is thought to 

 be excellent. It is not very easy to take aim at the bird, because he has a 

 way of dipping down from the branch to the ground, and running away before 

 the hunter can come within firing distance. In the winter, however, the birds 

 are in companies of sometimes a hundred and fifty, and they keep to the sides 

 of lakes and rivers. And then the sportsmen go out with their guns. And in 

 one part of Sweden a very destructive plan is adopted. The birds are shot in 

 the night by torchlight. The plan is to watch their flight as they go into the 

 forest to roost, and to mark the direction so as to be able to follow it. Then 



