52 GAME BIRDS AND SHOOTING-SKETCHES 



cock and Caper hen. Every year one or two are killed in 

 the districts inhabited by the Caper in Scotland. Though 

 I have repeatedly tried to secure a specimen of the female 

 of this cross, I have never yet been successful, and now 

 begin to feel some doubt as to obtaining an example to 

 figure.^ All the birds that have been shown or sent to 

 me as veritable specimens have turned out to be Greyhens 

 commencing to assume the male plumage, or hen CajDers 

 doing the same. M'Gregor, the keeper of Ochtertyre, 

 Perthshire, who is a most accurate observer, stated that 

 three, all hens, had been shot on that estate ten years 

 ago, and he described the birds very accurately, so that 

 I have no doubt they were female examples of this hybrid. 

 These were preserved, l)ut he had no recollection as to 

 what had become of them. The chances are, then, that 

 the reader is not likely to see any but males. The 

 specimen of the male from which the drawing is taken 

 is a very handsome one, showing as it does the character- 

 istics of both species well, for, as a rule, the plumage is 

 somewhat somljre and dull ; and with the exce^^tion of 

 this one, which shows the Caper well in the back and 

 wings, and two that General M'Intyre of Fort Rose has, 

 which are as black as Blackcock, the males may pass as 

 somewhat uninteresting birds, possessing the respective 

 beauties of neither species. These hybrids manifest a 

 peculiarity which is not noticeable to any extent in either 

 Capercaillie or Blackgame, namely, that of a roving dis- 

 position. At times, a single bird will suddenly appear in 



^ Since writing tlie above, Mr. ^^'alter Rothscliild lias been kind enough 

 to lend me an undoubted specimen, ^vlucb is figured in the illustration of this 

 hybrid on page 17. 



