CAPERCAILLIE 45 



wherewith to adorn his hall ; but the bird at this season 

 is far from being a thing of beauty, so many a man, who 

 has a more subtle mind for the fitness of things, has 

 preferred that his small uncouth specimen should be 

 accompanied to the bird-stufter by a little note stating 

 that the enclosed bird must be replaced by an old cock 

 in good plumage when the season is more advanced ! 

 Thus he ensures for himself a trophy he may well be 

 proud of, and can show to his friends without a blush. 

 A taxidermist told me that he mounted thirty or forty 

 old cocks every year to Ije sent south to sportsmen as 

 having been " shot " by them ! 



A most curious and extraordinary nesting-place of the 

 Capercaillie was discovered in 1889 by the keeper at 

 Eohallion, Perthshire. The nest was placed on the top- 

 most branches of a Scotch fir, about 40 feet from the 

 ground, and in this perilous situation the hen hatched her 

 eggs, though how many survived the descent it is hard to 

 say. Had they been like young Water-hens or Wild Duck, 

 birds which occasionally build in situations like the above, 

 they would probably have all got down in safety and little 

 the worse for their rough descent. Not one, however, was 

 picked up on the spot, for Boath (the keeper) told me he 

 had searched about in the vicinity of the nest at the foot 

 of the tree and could find no trace of them, and it was 

 not till a fortnight after the Ijrood were supposed to have 

 tumbled down from their loftv home that he saw a single 



o 



young bird with a broken leg accompanied by the old 

 hen. This, he thought, was the sole survivor, as vermin 

 of some sort most likely carried off the others that were 

 killed by the fall. This is the only instance known to 



