SKETCHES OF EUROPEAN ORNITHOLOGY. 305 
via modularis, le Mouchet, Traine buisson, ou Fauvette d’Hiver, of 
the older ornithologists,—is here very charmingly delineated in two 
figures, male and female. The only defect is that the figures are 
much too large. All the other species of Accentor, a genus instituted 
by Cuvier, are, with one exception, peculiar lo Europe. Our favou- 
rite little songster breeds in March. The bright-blue eggs are fami- 
liar to every school-boy. Even this passing adversion to them still 
serves to call up, with us, the splendid yet mournful apparition of de- 
parted days. 
Puate V. Capercailzie or Cock of the Woods,—Tetrao urogal- 
lus,—Tétrao Auerhan, F’r.,—Gallo di Monte d’Urogallo, Z¢.,—Auer- 
waldhuhn, G. This noble bird, the largest of the Grouse-Family, 
formerly inhabited the forests of North Britain ; but it has long been 
extinct. Itis still common in the pine-woods of the mountainous dis- 
tricts of Europe, and more especially in those of Sweden and Norway, 
from whence the London markets are principally supplied with it. 
Many laudable attempts have, of late, been made to re-introduce into 
congenial situations of our islands, and again naturalize among us, 
this “ Prince of game-birds.” With the issue of these experiments 
we are, at present, unacquainted. Z. wrogallus and Tetrix differ 
essentially, in their habits and character, from the other species of the 
Grouse-Family. They are more decidedly arboreal ; and the horny 
papille, with which their feet are furnished, enable them to grasp 
securely the slippery branches of the pine and other Alpine trees. 
The male is polygamous ; and associates with the female only during 
the breeding season. The latter lays from eight to sixteen eggs, of 
a yellowish-white colour spotted with a darker yellow, in a nest con- 
structed amidst brakes and underwood ; and rears her young in se- 
clusion. The trachea of the male bird forms a convolution at about 
three-fourths of its length, between the branches of the fork-bone. 
The curvature of the tube, after rising nearly an inch and a half, de- 
scends afresh, by the left side of the gizzard, over the cervical mus- 
cles into the lungs. Two muscles, one line broad, attached on each 
side of the larynx, follow laterally the direction of the tube, to which 
they adhere by very delicate fibres; pass over the gizzard, and unite 
their fibres on the crest of the sternum. This peculiarity of struc- 
ture of the trachea, and the two ribband-like muscles, do not exist in 
the female bird. The figures, presented by Mr. Gould, although 
finely executed, are not so strikingly characteristic of the originals as 
in many of the preceding plates. 
Prare VI. presents figures, male and female, of the Buff-breasted 
VOL. IX., NO. XXVI. 39 
