168 On the Ornithology of Wilts [ Tetraonidai]. 



they seek their food which consists of grain and vegetable sub- 

 stances, entirely on the ground. 



" Capercaillie." (Tetrao Urogallus.) The occurrence of a single 

 specimen of this magnificent bird within the limits of this county, 

 as recorded by the late Rev. George Marsh, (whose loss we cannot 

 cease to deplore), entitles me to include it within our Wiltshire 

 list. That straggler made its appearance at Winterslow in 1841, 

 and was supposed to have escaped from Mr. Baring's park, where 

 several had been introduced : indeed it had entirely ceased to exist 

 south of the Tweed, and was almost extinct in Scotland a few 

 years back, till the Marquis of Breadalbane and other noblemen 

 reinforced its fast diminishing ranks, by importing fresh colonists 

 from Sweden, and preserved and protected it in their extensive 

 forests, till it has now re-peopled its former haunts ; so that it is 

 not probable that our Wiltshire visitor had wandered from its 

 home under natural causes ; nor is it likely that a bird of so heavy 

 a body and such short wings would have voluntarily straj'ed so far 

 south. The male Capercaillie is as large as an ordinary Turkey, 

 and well deserves the honourable title of " Cock of the Wood." 

 Its general plumage is very dark green, or almost black ; and it is 

 a native of the extensive pine forests of Scotland, Scandinavia and 

 Russia. It feeds on the leaves and young shoots of the Scotch fir, 

 which impart a certain resinous taste to the flesh ; but it also de- 

 vours greedily the numerous ground-berries, blue-berries, whortle- 

 berries, cran-berries, &c., with which northern forests abound; and 

 these I have found, in incredible quantities, in the crops of several 

 specimens, whose skins I preserved in Norway. The peculiar 

 ** play " or love song of this bird, [lek, as it is termed in Sweden,) 

 practised at the breeding season, I have fully described in my 

 " Observations in Natural History, during a tour in Norway in 

 1850," published in the Zoologist for that year and the following, 

 p. 2944, et seq. 



" Black Grous." (Tretrao tetrix.) This too is but a straggler 

 to our county, though its visits have been more frequent ; and from 

 the undoubted fact that it inhabits though sparingly, the New Forest 

 and other suitable haunts in the neighbouring counties of Somerset 



