36 NATURALIZATION 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 unhappily 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 couple of miles. 

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

 they appear to confine themselves to certain zones, the 

 places where they had previously been abundant being 

 then all but deserted by them. That in the winter the 

 males and females keep for the most part separate 1 , tin- 

 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 

 an- common, but (heu parentage uncertain. 



* Lady Brewlalbane hcnelf Mured UK- that when tiikini; an aii -ini; in 

 In-r carriage on the banks of Loch Tay, she lias repeatedly drive n under 

 the very trees in which tlie Cajiereali liens were pen-lie. I, ; ,nd that without 

 their tiikinv' the .-li^'hte-t notice. 



