2 THE CAPERCAILLIE. 



and his reputation as a Gaelic scholar and voluminous 

 Gaelic author entitles tliese views to the highest considera- 

 tion : — 



About the second part of the word Dr. Maclauchlan con- 

 siders there can be little room for doubt, and most Gaelic 

 scholars appear to agree in this ; but the first part of the 

 word, he acknowledges, is more difficult. He says — 

 " ' Gabhar,' pronounced ' Cavar,' means, according to our dic- 

 tionaries, a hawk or old bird. It is not at all unlikely that it 

 is the word spelled ' Caper.' There is a similar word used in 

 the name for a snipe, ' Gabhar-athar,' thought by some to 

 mean the goat of the air, from its bleating note. But," Dr. 

 Maclauchlan continues, " it is a masculine noun, and ' gabhar,' 

 a Q'oat, is feminine. I therefore lean to the idea that both in 

 Gabhar-athar and Cabhar-coille — the one being the bird of the 

 air, and the other the bird of the woods — the original term is 

 Gabhar." Dr. Maclauchlan considers that " Gaber-coille " is 

 the orthography which comes nearest to the original. In a 

 later letter to Professor Newton — who at that time was pre- 

 paring an article on the Capercaillie for the Encyclopcedia 

 Britannica, and who has kindly put the above correspond- 

 ence at my disposal — Dr. Maclauchlan states that the word 

 Gabhar is not one in common use, and that " we are indebted 

 for its meaning to our dictionaries, except in so far as it may 

 enter into the formation of words like Gapercoille. The Latin 

 senex, so far as I apprehend, comes nearest to the meaning of 

 ' old ' in cabhar, ' not antiquus.' There is a playful way of 

 applying such words to the formation of names in Gaelic. 

 For example : — Bodach is an old man, and Bodach-ruadh, the 

 red old man, is the rock-cod. Gailleach is an old woman, and 

 Cailleach-aidhche, the old woman of the night, is the owl. I 

 think the Cabhar in this case is similarly applied." 



Professor Newton {Encyc. Brit., art. " Capercally ") says : — 

 " Cabhar, an old man, by metaphor an old bird, which is the 



