CAPEECALZIE SHOOTING. 



37 



for him a cargo of Capercalzie — a proposal made by 

 him to Lord Breadalbane to attempt the restoration 

 of that bird upon the oc(;asion of his shooting with 

 tliat nobleman over his moors— he proceeds to state, 

 that the nmiiber above named reached England in 

 1837, in charge of his father's Irish gamekeeper. 

 A portion of these birds were turned out in the 

 autumn of that year, and the remainder kept in a 

 house. In 1838, he tells us, a brace only was 

 reared by the keeper, but two fine broods were seen 

 in the woods. In the summer of 1838, sixteen hens 

 were forwarded to Taymouth ; so that in all thirteen 

 cock capercalzies and twenty-nine hens reached Lord 

 Breadalbane, the others being destroyed by the ca- 

 sualties of travel. In the spring of 1839, instead of 

 attempting to rear any capercalzies, Mr. Guthrie 

 (Lord Breadalbane's head keeper) placed eggs, laid by 

 the birds kept in the house, in the nests of grey-hens, 

 who hatched and brought them up in a wild state. 

 According to this keeper's account, the ex- 

 periment was very successful. In 1839, he states 

 that forty-nine young capercalzies were born in the 

 district under his care ; but unfortunately they could 

 hardly be said to have been brought up, as the 

 poachers were soon upon them, and they made their 

 appearance in the shops of the Edinburgh poulterers :- 

 " A hen has been offered this season to a poulterer 

 in Princes Street." Now, we would ask— apropos of 

 the existing dilemma of the game legislators— why 

 was not the offerer transferred to the care of a police- 



