146 THE CAPERCAILLIE. 



forests is necessary, before the amount due to each agent in it 

 can be assigned with justice and impartiality. 



Finally, on the subject of food. According to authors and 

 correspondents : — In summer the food of the Capercaillie con- 

 sists of various plants, fern-shoots, and buds of trees, such as 

 alder, birch, and hazel, and acorns, where procurable ; almost 

 all sorts of berries, such as cranberries, cowberries, blaeber- 

 ries, wild strawberries and raspberries, juniper-berries, and of 

 insects. It also feeds on the leaves of the larch and Scotch 

 fir, and sparingly of the spruce. A correspondent states that 

 from 1st of November to end of May, or thereabouts, they 

 feed upon vegetable food, and principally on fir-shoots ; but 

 in summer — i.e. from beginning of June to end of October — 

 " they live greatly upon insects, digging deep into ants' mounds 

 in search of food, and stripping off the bark of rotten prostrate 

 trees, looking for worms or beetles." 



So also do its congeners black game and grouse. " During 

 spring and summer the black cock, as Mr. Lloyd informs us, 

 feeds upon birch buds, tender leaves . . . berries, etc., 

 and on insects and larvse." 



I will be glad if what I have said above will lead to a 

 more thorough investigation of the statistics of damages done 

 to forests, 1st, solely by Capercaillie ; 2d, solely by squirrels ; 

 M, solely by insects ; 4ih, solely by wood pigeons ; and ^th, 

 solely by black game. Each of these subjects might weU 

 deserve separate and exhaustive treatment, but in such an 

 investigation it is needless to say every separate act of 

 destruction or damage should be distinctly and clearly brought 

 home to one of the agents, and every side of the question be 

 critically examined. Until actual, positive, unquestionable, 

 and distinct evidence, and a large mass of carefully collected 

 statistics be brought together, and viewed from every possible 

 aspect, we cannot, I consider, with justice assign the amount 

 of damage done to any one of these agents in particular. 



