478 CAPERCAILLIE. 



in oak- and birch-coverts. The females precede the males by one 

 or two years in the search for new quarters, and under these cir- 

 cumstances they often breed with the Black-cock ; the male hybrid 

 being a remarkably handsome bird, with plum-coloured breast and a 

 slightly forked tail. 



The Capercaillie inliabits the pine-forests of Scandinavia up to 

 lat. 70°, and in Denmark its remains are found in the kitchen- 

 middens of the prehistoric races who lived before the fir-woods had 

 given way to the oak and the birch. It is abundant in the northern 

 forests of Russia, but is decreasing in Poland, Northern and Central 

 Germany, and the various branches of the Alps and Carpathians ; 

 while from Auvergne and the French side of the Pyrenees it has 

 almost disappeared, though not uncommon on the Spanish slope and 

 in the Cantabrian range. In the Caucasus it is unknown. It is found 

 from 67° N. lat. in Asiatic Siberia down to the Altai Mountains and 

 north-eastern Turkestan, and as far as Lake Baikal ; east of which 

 its counterpart is T. urogalloides of Middendorff (not of Nilsson), 

 a more slender bird, with head and neck of a rich purple. 



Early in spring the male Capercaillie begins his love-song of 

 peller, pelier, peller, to attract the hens, at the same time erecting his 

 tail and drooping his wings in a sort of ecstasy ; and this proceed- 

 ing, known as his ' play ' or ' spel,' is repeated for a short time 

 about Michaelmas. The nest is a mere hcllow scraped in the 

 ground under a tree or bush, the eggs, 6-12 in number, being pale 

 reddish-yellow, with brown spots and blotches : average measure- 

 ments 2'2 by I "5 in. Incubation lasts about a month, and the 

 young are usually hatched early in June. The food of the adults 

 consists of tender shoots of the Scotch fir (rarely of the spruce), 

 with various berries in summer ; the young eat insects, worms &c. 

 The name Capercaillie is, I believe, derived from the Celtic gabur 

 a goat — with allusion to the elongated chin-feathers of the male 

 and his amorous behaviour in spring — and coille a wood : i.e.^ ' goat 

 of the wood ' ; but some authorities prefer cabhar an old man, or 

 golntr a horse. 



The adult male has a strong hooked bill \ upper plumage chiefly 

 dark slate-grey, nearly black on the tail ; chest dark glossy-greeu ; 

 lower parts almost black ; legs covered with hair-like brown feathers, 

 short in summer, but overhanging the toes in winter. There is 

 great variation in size, but the average length of the wing is 16 in. 

 The female is much smaller, and the general colour of her upper 

 plumage is brown mottled with buff and white ; the neck and breast 

 are orange-buff, barred with black and spotted with white. 



