2 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



Argyllsliire, and Fife, one having l)een killed in 1888 as 

 far south as Dalmeny, in Mid-Lothian. 



The ground Capers seem to like best is broken and 

 rouofh hillsides, overgrown with larches and Scotch firs. 

 There must also be good and varied feeding-spots beneath, 

 where heather and mountain berries grow, and banks of 

 fern and bracken where they can lie in hiding during the 

 summer months. Such spots are to be found everywhere 

 throuofhout the above-named counties. It is a curious fact 

 that, although these birds have been several times intro- 

 duced into Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, where every- 

 thing seems to be in their favour (in addition to those 

 counties being their former home before reintroduction), 

 they do not thrive, and the birds, after being carefully 

 preserved for a year or two, have totally disappeared. 



Their affection for certain places, which at first sight 

 one would little imagine were frequented by them, is 

 sometimes most extraordinary. There is a little wood, quite 

 twenty miles from the nearest Caper ground proper, and 

 situated out in a barren and desolate tract of sand-hills 

 on the coast of Fife, which for a great many years has 

 been inhabited by Capercaillie ; and I often wondered -how 

 they originally came there, until, one day, I met a brother 

 gunner shooting on the estuary of the Ta}% who told me 

 that he had once seen a cock Caper crossing from Forfar- 

 shire to the Fife side, where the wood is situated. This 

 must have involved a flight of at least seven or eight miles 

 (no mean journey for a game bird). Mr. Speedie, who 

 owns this wood on Tents Muir, where I have spent many 

 a pleasant day after Snipe and Woodcock, tells me they 

 never increase or diminish, probably owing to the young 



