CAPERCAILLIE. 359 



Family PHASIANID^E. Genus TETRAO. 



Sub-family TE 7 'A y A ONIN^E. 



CAPERCAILLIE. 



TETRAO UROGALLUS, Linn&us. 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, April and May. 



BRITISH BREEDING AREA : Considerable success has 

 attended the re-introduction of the Capercaillie into 

 Scotland, and doubtless the bird will ultimately extend 

 its area into many districts both north and south of its 

 present centre of distribution. Its head-quarters in our 

 islands are the counties of Perth, Forfar, and Stirling. 



BREEDING HABITS : The Capercaillie, as may scarcely 

 be remarked, is a resident in the British Islands, but 

 there is a strong tendency to chronic emigration, 

 especially among young males. Its haunts are prin- 

 cipally confined to the extensive fir, spruce, and larch 

 forests, but it also frequents in smaller numbers birch 

 and oak woods, and the rough, sparsely-timbered ground 

 between the forests and the moorlands. The Capercaillie 

 is polygamous, and during the mating season the males 

 indulge in various antics, repairing in the morning and 

 evening to certain stations or " leking-places," where 

 after their display and love-cries are over, and the 

 possession of the females decided by right of conquest, 

 the males pair. Each cock runs with several hens, but 

 takes no share in nesting duties. The nest is merely a 

 hollow lined with a few dry leaves or a little withered 

 grass and some pine-needles, made amongst the heather 

 and bilberry wires in an open part of the forests, often 

 beneath the shelter of a stunted bush, or sheltered by 

 masses of fern and bramble. The bird is a close sitter, 

 and when flushed flies off into cover with little or no 

 demonstration. 



