CAPERCAILLIE. 57 



is an amusing account of a male Capercaillie, which, having 

 paired successfully with a Turkey-hen, deserted her for a 

 white Goose, but was so scared by his reception that he never 

 made any further advances to the Turkey or to any other 

 hen bird. Allusion has already been made to the wild 

 hybrid between the Capercaillie and the Black Grouse : 

 a cross which is not uncommon in all countries inhabited 

 by the two species, and is known in Scandinavia as the 

 Rakkelkane or Rakkclfogel. This hybrid is generally, and 

 some say invariably, produced between the female Caper- 

 caillie and the Black-cock, and Mr. Harvie-Browu con- 

 siders that it probably results from the fact that the females 

 of the Capercaillie start on their wanderings before the 

 males, and, in the absence of their natural partners, mate 

 with the handsome and amorous Black-cocks whose ter- 

 ritory they have invaded. The male Capercaillies soon 

 follow the females, so this hybridism rarely attains to serious 

 proportions. As regards the paternity, however, the late 

 M. Falk, whose arguments are given at considerable length 

 in Mr. Lloyd's ' Game Birds,' held that many of these 

 hybrids were the offspring of the females of the Black 

 Grouse, and the younger male Capercaillies which had been 

 debarred by the older and stronger birds from uniting with 

 females of their own species. Under the former assump- 

 tion, which has been maintained by Nilsson, Collett, and 

 others, the name of Tetrao urogallo-tetrix has been given 

 as expressive of the origin of this hybrid, and as a sub- 

 stitute for the inapplicable name T. urogalloides. From 

 the erroneous belief that it was a distinct species, it had 

 already been called T. medius, T. intermedins, &c. 



The male of this hybrid is a handsome black-billed bird, 

 sometimes nearly as large as a young Capercaillie cock, and 

 from six to seven pounds in weight ; the shining feathers on 

 the neck are of a rich Orleans-plum colour, and the outer 

 feathers of the tail are longer than the others, giving it a 

 forked appearance, although never to anything like the same 

 extent as in the Black-cock. The figure of this bird on the 

 next page is taken from a coloured illustration to Nilsson's 



VOL. Ill, I 



