CAPERCAILLIE 53 



places where Capercaillie are quite unknown,^ tlius show- 

 ing that it must have wandered far from the place where 

 it was born. In the year 1889 one was shot at Lochloy, 

 near Nairn, by Ronald Baillie, Esq., and others have been 

 killed at various times in Aberdeenshire. At the first 

 reintroduction of Capercaillie, two cocks were kept penned 



THE CAPERCAILLIE PASS, CRAIGIE BARNS, DUXKELD. 



up with domestic fowls, and in one instance the hen's eggs 

 were hatched and successfully reared, but no specimen of 

 this curious cross was ever preserved. 



Since writing the foregoing notes I have been kindly 



1 This, again, might be accounted for by the presence of a roving hen 

 Caper that had come to the ground in the spring, where she had paired with 

 a Blackcock. It is noticeable in the case of the hen Capercaillie that when 

 she wanders from her native ground to other districts not frec[uented by her 

 species, she will as likely pair with a Blackcock as not. Vide, for instance, 

 Capercaillie and Pheasants. 



