3() NATURALIZATIOK IN SCOTLAND. 



Being desirous, when last in England, to learn how 

 the Capercali were getting on in Scotland, as also if 

 they had in any way changed their ordinary habits, I 

 applied to Lord Breadalbane for information on the sub- 

 ject, which he kindly promised to give me after communi- 

 cating with his keepers ; but before receiving a reply to 

 my inquiries, he was imhappily seized with the malady 

 which proved fatal. 



Sir Alexander Campbell, a near relative of Lord 

 Breadalbane, however, told me that the Capercali were 

 then as common about Taymouth Castle as the Black- 

 Cock, but that it was quite impossible to estimate their 

 number. That they had spread from Taymouth over all 

 the more wooded parts of the Highlands as far as 

 Aberdeen. That they at times took long flights, he 

 himself having repeatedly seen them cross from one hill- 

 side to another, a distance, perhaps, of a cbuj)le of miles. 

 That they feed freely on the larch. That in the autumn 

 tliey appear to confine themselves to certain zones, the 

 places where they had jireviously been abundant being- 

 then all l)ut deserted by them. That in the winter the 

 males and females keep for the most part separate, the 

 latter chiefly resorting to localities near the water, and 

 being very tame;* that the cocks are then "packed," 

 and that he has often seen twenty and upwards together, 

 and in the course of a single day as many perhaps as eighty. 

 That hybrids between the Capercali and the Black-Cock 

 are common, but iheir parentaffe uncertain. 



■"' Lady Breadalbane lierself assured nie that -wlien taking an airing in 

 lier carriage on tlie banks of Loeli Tay, she has repeatedly driven vmder 

 the very trees in which the Capercali hens were perched, and that vvithciut 

 their takina; the slightest notice. 



