TETRAO UROGALLUS. 545 



Selby omits it in his list of British birds, saying — "The 

 extirpation of that noble bird, the capercail, or cock of the wood 

 (Tetrao Urogallus) — the last of which was killed forty years 

 before, near Inverness — has placed the black grouse at the head 

 of this genus in the British Fauna." And Macgillivray in 1852 

 says — " This magnificent bird, the chieftain of the grouse tribe, 

 although once plentiful in Scotland, known by the name of 

 capercailzie, has long ceased to be a denizen of our forests. It 

 has not been seen in Scotland for half a century." In his 

 "Eggs of British Birds," Mr Hewitson in 1854 also says — 

 "Though for many years extinct in Britain, several attempts 

 have recently been made to re-establish the capercailzie in this 

 country, and, I trust, with some success." But I think them 

 premature in their assumed extinction. Would that our own 

 faults and failings were as easily extirpated as the capercailzie ! 

 Some years ago one was caught in a garden near Dundee by 

 Mrs Baxter, Union Street, described in the press as " a fine 

 capercailzie cock in a healthy condition, and was stuffed by Mr 

 A. Donaldson, taxidermist, and as it is rarely found except in 

 the depths of hill woods, the bird must have come from the 

 Sidlaws." In 1878 a nest with eight eggs was got in the wood 

 close to Lindores Loch ; and on May 27th, 1879, Mr Allan 

 Briggs got one with nine eggs at the foot of a Scotch fir in 

 Lathrisk Wood, near Ladybank, and a sparrow hawk's with 

 five eggs on a tree within ten feet of it ; and, curiously, next 

 year, 1880, on May 20th, he got another capercailzie's with nine 

 eggs within six yards of the previous one, and a sparrow hawk's 

 also quite close, with five eggs ; on April 20, 1890, a 

 capercailzie cock flew off one of the old Scotch firs on Tentsmuir 

 (possibly the last remnants of the old Caledonian forest). Mr 

 Canch and John Lonie saw a cock on Tentsmuir in 1892, 

 '93, and '94, near the young fir woods (about 300 acres), planted 

 by the late Mr Speedie. One was also seen in Mountmelville Den, 

 about 3 J miles from St Andrews. Eight nests with eggs were got 

 in one year at Bonskeid, in Perthshire ; so, if they were nearly 

 extinct before, the importations from Norway have taken a firm 

 hold again — perhaps too firm for the tops of the young Scotch 

 firs, to which they are very destructive, shoots five inches long 

 by | inch thick being often found in their crop, which can be 

 extended to seven inches in diameter. The shooting of a fine cock 

 in Perthshire by Prince Albert, the Queen's late Consort, no 

 doubt accelerated the importation, as it was then considered 

 so rare. It is the largest gallinaceous bird in Europe — the 



