1 



S\v.), which assume in great measure the plumage of 

 the young male, together with its thick, crooked, and 

 white heak, and its longer tail ; hut they are always readily 

 distinguishahle by their inferior size. 



"Their sterility," says Nilsson, when speaking of the 

 birds in question, "is not always a consequence of old 

 a^e ; for those that I have dissected were in their first 

 year, but in all of them the ovary and the oviduct wen- in 

 a diseased state and more or less destroyed. The younger 

 they were," the Professor proceeds to say, "the less they 

 resembled the male, and the older the closer resemblance 

 they bore to him." 



The chosen haunts of the Capercali are mountainous 

 and hilly districts, where Barr-Skogar, or pine woods, 

 abound, particularly such as are of mature growth and 

 studded with lakes and morasses. Sometimes, however. 

 it is met with in woods interspersed with deciduous trees 

 (L&f-Skogar), more especially the oak; as it feeds Creel \ 

 on acorns. Excepting in the autumn, and when the 

 young are small and follow their mother, these birds are 

 seldom seen in brushwood or even in woods of young 

 growth, and then only when in the vicinity of great woods. 



During the summer, the food of the Capercali consists 

 chiefly of several kinds of plants, ferns, and buds of certain 

 trees and hushes, such as the alder, birch, and hazel ; of 

 acorns, where procurable ; of almost all sorts of berries 

 found in the northern forests, as, for example, the 

 cranberry (Oxycocciu palvstris, L'crs. ; 1'ncrini/itt/ o.rycoc- 

 ., Linn.), the red whortleberry, or cowberry* ( 



* The Kerry of tliis plant. whieh in the London market often ;.'oes 

 tlie erroneous nninc of ( 'ranKerry. is not of sn line a flavour, when 

 piv-'i < i'l. as tin- latter; Imt. owinj: to Kein^ ], s> aei<l, il is pn d mil l.y thrifty 

 liousew i\rs in Swe.len. MS reiplirin^ :i smaller i|iiant il\ ofsii^'ar. 1'eeently 

 I nt a ijiHMl uian\ li\ in^; sjieeimens of (he ( Ymiliern to Sir Tlionia^ Maryoli 

 \\'il.son. which :n-c- now flourishing at his s,.',t. ( 'harlton l|..iise. in Kent. 



