LAWS OF EXTENSION OF RANGE. 109 



mentioned partial migration or change of residence may, in 

 many cases, be induced by this preference. (See also, under 

 " Eestoration," the account by Sir Eobert Menzies, Bart., of 

 the preference shown to the woods of Dull, near Taymouth.)^ 



In certain districts, as, for example, in Glendochart, in 

 the west of Perthshire, Capercaillies are known to frequent 

 coppices of hardwood (birch and oak), and even to occur 

 regularly in autumn at some distance away from wood of any 

 kind, being often shot by sportsmen as they rise out of long 

 heather on the hill-sides.^ 



In the winter season, however, most of these latter repair 

 to more suitable shelter. 



Their favourite haunts are spruce, Scotch fir, or larch 

 forests, and their occurrence in hardwood coverts is com- 

 paratively rare, except in the breeding season, or in the case 

 of birds resting during a tour of inspection. The departure 

 from their usual habitat, on comparatively rare occasions, 

 may be accounted for by a natural impulse urging them to 

 extend their range, notwithstanding unusual difficulties and 

 unsuitable ground, combined with an unusually strong pres- 

 sure outward from the nearest centre of population. An 

 unusually strong pressure of this kind probably takes place 

 outward from Taymouth ; and Glendochart being the direct 



^ Correspondents inform me that the young birds do not like the sun, and 

 that in the heat of summer they often shelter themselves under overhanging 

 banks, apparently to escape from it. In the heat' of summer even the old 

 birds sit more upon the gi'ound than earlier or later in the season. In Glen- 

 almond, in Perthshire, the bank of the river facing the north is preferred, but 

 that is simply because the distribution of the pine woods favours them. On 

 the sovith side of Loch Rannoch it has been found rather difficult successfully 

 to rear and keep them. The young birds hatched out at Cromer Hall (vide 

 under " Restoration "), supposed to have died from exposure to a scorching 

 sun ('Penny Cydopcedia,^ vol. vi. p. 260), may, however, have perished from 

 an insufficient supply of their natural food.' 



^ In Norway, Sweden, and Russia, the Capercaillie also occurs occasionally 

 in hardwood coverts — oak, beech, birch, etc. — but is not usually stationary 

 in such localities ; but, as remarked b}' several Scandinavian naturalists, 

 seems fond of patches of such growth in the midst of pine forests. 



