THE GROUSE SUBFAMILY 33 



While in the choice of a nesting-site our native Grouse using 

 this term in its wide sense naturally display a certain amount of 

 difference, due to individual idiosyncrasies or to local conditions, 

 all nest upon the ground. The capercaillie sometimes, however, 

 deposits her eggs in a nest amid the branches of a tree some 10 or 15 

 feet from the ground. Usually she selects a site at the foot of an 

 old Scotch fir or larch, and occasionally in deep heather. 



As with the Grouse generally, she alone incubates, and at the 

 commencement of her sitting will commonly cover her eggs with pine- 

 needles when going off to feed. As soon, however, as incubation has 

 well begun, this precaution seems to be abandoned, which custom 

 suggests that the act of covering the eggs is not primarily for 

 concealment of the eggs. The young, on hatching, seem to break the 

 shell across the equator, and the two halves are then cunningly placed 

 one inside the other by the mother, though it is hard to see what 

 advantage seems to be gained therefrom. Whether the remaining 

 species of Grouse similarly cover the eggs, and in like manner dispose 

 of the empty shells, there are no records to show. 



The mortality among chicks seems to be abnormally high, though 

 they have the best of mothers. Even when the whole clutch of eggs 

 is hatched it is rare to see more than three or four youngsters with 

 her after the end of the first week. The rest have either succumbed 

 to spring showers, or have been lost in the deep heather. The sur- 

 vivors, however, grow rapidly, and gain in strength with their increase 

 in bulk. 



It is curious that while the capercaillie has had to be reintro- 

 duced into Scotland, the black-grouse has never been even near 

 extermination, though the grey-hen is said to be a bad mother, 

 deserting her eggs on the slightest alarm ; and she is also charged with 

 being lamentably careless in her choice of a nesting-site. Mr. Abel 

 Chapman cites one or two instances in proof of this trait. In one 

 case a nest was made in a bank thrown up to form a sheep-washing 

 pool on a burn ; in another it was placed in a tuft of rushes adjoining 



VOL. IV. B 



