DERIVATION. 3 



acceptation of Dr. Maclauchlan's meaning = the old bird 

 of the wood, tlie Capercaillie." ^ 



^ On the other hand, not a few Gaelic scholars consider that Capercaillie 

 is derived from " Capicll, a Jiorse," see capel, capcll, eaples — Chaucer, line 

 170, 13-4 — vide Bayley's ' Dictionariu7n Britannicum' — caballus — "or, more 

 correctly, a mare. Capull is a masculine noun, but at the present day is 

 limited in its application to a mare, and Coille, a toood. " This reading gives 

 ^^ Horse of the woods." In Argyleshire and Lochaber the bird is still known 

 by the name CapuUcoille. So also it is considered by several correspondents 

 who are good Gaelic scholars. Amongst others, the Rev. Alexander Stewart 

 of Nether Lochaber says : — "It is called ' Horse of the woods,' because of 

 its size, strength, and beauty, as compared with other wood birds" (m lit.) ; 

 and he further mentions that the name CapuUcoille is found in Gaelic songs 

 of the beginning of this century. The Rev. Lachlan Shaw, in his ^History of 

 the Province of Moray'' (1775), also assigns this derivation: "properly, in 

 Erse, Capal coile, i.e. The Wood Horse, being the chief fowl of the woods," 

 {pp. cit. p. 207). In Strathearn, in the south of Perthshire, where native 

 Gaelic is now almost extinct, the name still lingers in this form. The first 

 author of a Gaelic dictionary — M 'Donald, an Argyle man — thus renders it, 

 and all subsequent authors of Gaelic dictionaries do so likewise. Mr. D. 

 Mackinnon, who has most kindly taken great trouble in this connection, 

 looked up all the Gaelic dictionaries accessible, and informs me that all, 

 without exception, give Capull coille. " None have caper, cabar, or cabher.'^ 

 . . . " The first Gaelic dictionary," Mr. Mackinnon informs me, "was written 

 by M'Donald, an Argyle man, in 1741. Shaw, a native of Arran, prepared 

 the next dictionary, and published it in 1780. Two small dictionaries were 

 published in the latter part of the century by two Macfarlanes. In this 

 century our two standard dictionaries — Armstrong's, a Saxon domiciled in 

 Perth, and the Highland Society's, prepared by scholars from all parts of the 

 country — were published in 1825 and 1828 respectively. There followed 

 them M'Leod and Dewar's, two clei-gymen from diff'erent parts of the 

 country ; M 'Alpine's, an Islay man ; and M'Eachan's, a Roman Catholic 

 priest, who spent his life, or the greater part of it, in Braemar. The only 

 Irish dictionary I turned up has CapuUcoille, quoted from Shaw. In the 

 Scoto-Irish Dictionary, given in Llhuyd's ^ Archceologia Britannica,' the word 

 does not appear." 



Besides the above opinion, we have other derivations given. Jamieson, in 

 his 'Dictionary of the Scottish Language ' — Supplement, 1825, — has as follows : — 

 "Capercailye — yeane." A literary friend in the North of Scotland views 

 Capercailye as compounded of Gael. , Cabar, a branch, and Caolach, a cock. 

 [Jamieson quotes the Scotch translator of Boece — Bellenden — here : " Gaelic, 

 Caolach; C. B., Kelliog ; Corn., Kidliog ; Arm., Kiliog ; Irish, Kyleach, a 

 cock;" by which another element of confusion is introduced.] Cabar also 

 means an eminence, or the mountain, which may have led writers astray in 

 talking of the Capercaillie as specially "inhabiting mountains" {v. Burt, 

 Ray, and others). Jenyns gets out of the ditticulty by saying " mountainous 



