HISTOKY OF THE SPECIES IN SCOTLAND. 25 



species of wild turkey, was formerly a native of tliis parish 

 (Kiltarlity), and bred in the woods of Strathglass. One of 

 these bhds was killed about fifty or sixty years ago in the 

 churchyard of Kiltarlity" (see 'Stat. Acct. of the Parish'). 

 The Capercaillie appears also to have inhabited the parish of 

 Dowally, Perthshire {op. cit.) See also the letter written by 

 James VI. in 1617 to the earl of TuUibardine, before men- 

 tioned {v. p. 17). Nearly all of the above records have 

 already been compared and referred to by various authors ; 

 and Mr. Eobert Gray (' Birds of West of Scotland ') says : — 

 " All records agreeing in the fact of the bird being extremely 

 rare between the years 1745 and 1760, when it apparently 

 became extinct." In ' The New Statistical Account ' of Perth- 

 shire (1841), it is mentioned as pre-existing in the parish of 

 Fortingal (p. 543). 



Yarrell ('Brit. Birds,' 1st edition) says — " There is even 

 reason to believe that it (i.e., the hybrid) formerly existed in 

 Scotland, contemporary with the Capercaillie. Mr. G. T. 

 Fox in his ' Synopsis of the Contents of the Neivcastle Museum! 

 published in 1827, quotes the Tunstall MS. at p. 78, in the 

 following words : — " I know some old Scotch gentlemen, who 

 say they remember, when young, there were in Scotland, both 

 the Cock of the Wood and also the hybrid ; and at p. 245, 

 Mr. Fox has given a figure of this last-named bird, from a 

 specimen in the Newcastle Museum . . ." But it is not said 

 that this particular specimen was from Scotland. (Compare 

 remarks under Harting — Newton, antea, p. 22.) 



Eyton {'Barer British Birds' 1836, p. 30, footnote) men- 

 tions T. urugallus and T. medius, Meyer, as "formerly in- 

 habitants of the British Isles, but are now extinct." 



The hybrid is noticed as a native of Scotland by Brisson, 

 under the name of ' Ze coq de bruy&e piquete,' and, as we are 

 informed by Fleming {'Brit. An.' p. 46). " A Scottish gentle- 

 man told Dr. Tunstall, who informed Dr. Latham, that it 

 existed in our woods." 



