28 THE CAPERCAILLIE. 



Thou art the salmon of silver-clear streams, 

 Thou art the Capercaillie of the fir-woods.' " 



It only lived, I believe, in the memory of the bard. The tra- 

 dition of its former existence was indirectly perpetuated in 

 his poem. 



There is good reason for believing that the Bo'ness record 

 is so far genuine, and indeed that a bird, as recorded by 

 Graves, was procured there ; but from the situation of Bo'ness, 

 upon the shore of the Firth of Forth, and its being a sea-port 

 town, carrying on a trade in deals and timber with Norwegian 

 ports, the probability exists that the male bird shot there may 

 have escaped from, or been let loose by, sailors. Accordingly, 

 this record, as well as the Fort- William one, must be received 

 with caution as regards their real value, and all the more so 

 that such a long interval exists between these and all pre- 

 vious records. Fleming, moreover, writing in 1828 (' British 

 Animals' p. 46), after mentioning the occurrence of the last 

 birds in Strathglass (1860) and Strathspey (1845), says : — 

 " Kecent attempts have been made to recruit our forests [i.e., 

 with Capercaillies. — J. A. H. B,] from Norway, where the 

 species is still common ;" which attempts failing, and the 

 cocks wandering, would be almost sufficient to account for 

 these stray occurrences. At all events, in the absence of 

 distinct data, it is safer to accept the date of 1760 as that of 

 the extinction of the original stock in Scotland. 



' The Traveller's Guide, or a Topographical Description of 

 Scotland^ — Edinburgh, 1798 — still speaks of the ' Caper- 

 cciXziQ ' as existing at that date in Scotland (p. 4), but, as 

 already seen, this is extremely unlikely. 



Sir Eobert Menzies informs me he " has always under- 

 stood " that the last killed in his district — i.e., along Loch 

 Eannochside — was shot at Camagouran, by Gregor Macgregor, 

 gamekeeper to the Laird of Struan, about the beginning of 

 this, or the end of last, century ; liut in absence of further 



