HISTORY OF BIRDS. 





of a similar nature, and chiefly found in heathy 

 mountains and piny forests, at a distance from 

 mankind. They might once indeed have been 

 common enough all over England, when a 

 great part of the country was covered with 

 heath ; but at present their numbers are thin- 

 ned ; the two first of this kind are utterly un- 

 known in the south, and have taken refuge in 

 the northern parts of Scotland, where the ex- 

 tensive heaths afford them security, and the 

 forest shelter. 



The cock of the wood is sometimes of the 

 size of a turkey, and often weighs near four- 

 teen pounds; the black cock, of which the 

 male is all over black, though the female is of 

 the colour of a partridge, is about the size of 

 a hen, and, like the former, is only found with 

 us in the highlands of Scotland ; * the grouse 



by a peculiarity in the structure of the toes, which de- 

 serves especial attention. The tarsi are covered with 

 hairlike feathers, but the toes are bare, having their 

 edges strongly pectinated, or fringed with an array of 

 rough prominences ; for this remarkable fact it is diffi- 

 cult to assign a reason perfectly satisfactory to inquirers; 

 our own opinion is, that it is a provision for enabling the 

 birds to grasp securely the smooth branches of the trees 

 on which they perch, but more especially when they are 

 covered with frozen snow, or a coat of glassy ice, which 

 in the forests of the north is a common winter occur- 

 rence. 



In their flight the forest grou?e are rapid for short dis- 

 tances, but the motion of their wings is accompanied by 

 a whirring noise, like that of the pheasant. The scar- 

 let-fringed skin above the eye, so peculiar an ornament 

 in the grouse-tribe, they possess in great perfection ; the 

 beak is stout, short, and convex ; the nostrils are hidden 

 beneath a tuft of close small feathers, enveloping the 

 base of the upper mandible. 



Two species of this genus are indigenous in the Bri- 

 tish islands ; one is the black grouse, common in the 

 pine woods of Scotland, and of the northern counties of 

 England, and elsewhere ; the other, we regret to say, is 

 no longer a sojourner among us, it is the capercailzie 

 or cock of the wood. Sec the following note. 



1 The cock of the woods, which was once plentiful in 

 Scotland, where it was called the capercailzie, is now no 

 longer to be found there. This bird is by far the most 





magnificent of the tribe to which it belongs, and must 

 have been a truly worthy tenant of those splendid prime- 

 val forests which once overspread our country. The 

 male is nearly three fc;et in length, and attains a weight 

 of about fifteen pounds; black, brown, green, and white, 

 are his predominating colours ; and from the hook of his 

 bill, the strength of his limbs, and majesty of deport- 

 ment, he might rather be supposed to be a bird of prey 



is about half as large again as a partridge, 

 and its colour much like that of a wood-cock, 

 but redder; the ptarmigan is still somewhat 

 less, and is of a pale brown or ash colour. 



than even the chief of the grouse family of gallinse. 

 The numbers of the capercailzie naturally decreased in 

 Scotland with the woods that gave them shelter, and it 

 is now about sixty years since the last native individual 

 of the species ever seen in the country was shot in the 

 neighbourhood of Inverness. They are now most plen- 

 tiful in the forests of Northern Europe, and some parts 

 of Northern Asia, where they feed on the young shoots 

 and cones of the pine, the catkins of the birch, and ber- 

 ries of the juniper which form the underwood. They 

 are exceedingly shy, and in Germany, where they do 

 not abound so much as in Norway and Sweden, he is 

 considered an excellent hunter who has in a whole life- 

 time killed thirty. It is indeed only at the period of 

 incubation, when the male bird comes from his retire- 

 ment, and calls the females around him, that he is easily 

 approachable. Nevertheless, in Sweden they are some- 

 times domesticated in aviaries, and feed tamely from 

 the hand, and will even breed in confinement, though 

 it is remarked that in this state they still retain so 

 much of their natural wildness as to fly at and peck 

 strangers. 



Nilsson, a Norwegian naturalist, used to hunt the 

 capercailzie in autumn, in company with a cocker dog 

 called Brunette, by whose assistance he would flush them 

 from the ground, and cause them to perch in the trees. 

 " Here," he says, " as Brunette had the eye of an eagle 

 and the foot of an antelope, she was not long in follow- 

 ing them. Sometimes, however, those birds were in 

 the pines in the first instance; but as my dog was pos- 

 sessed of an extraordinarily fine sense of smelling, she 

 would often wind, or, in other words, scent them from a 

 long distance. When she found the capercailzie, she 

 would station herself under the tree where they were 

 sitting, and, by keeping up an incessant barking, direct 

 my steps towards the spot. I now advanced with silence 

 and caution ; and as it frequently happened that the at- 

 tention of the bird was much taken up with observing 

 the dog, I was enabled to approach until it was within 

 the range of my rifle, or even of my common gun. In 

 the forest, the capercailzie does not always present an 

 easy mark ; for, dipping down from the pines nearly 

 to the ground, as is frequently the case, they are often 

 almost out of distance before one can properly take aim/' 



Towards the commencement and during the continu- 

 ance of winter, the capercailzies are generally in packs ; 

 these, which are usually of cocks (the hens keeping 

 apart), do not separate until the approach of spring. 

 These packs, which are sometimes said to contain fifty 

 or a hundred birds, usually hold to the sides of the nu- 

 merous lakes and morasses with which the northern 

 forests abound; and to stalk the same in the winter- 

 time, with a good rifle, is no ignoble amusement. 



Among other expedients resorted to in the northern 

 forests for the destruction of the capercailzie, is the fol- 

 lowing: During the autumnal months, after flushing 

 and dispersing the brood, people place themselves, in 

 ambush, and imitate the cry of the old or young birds, 

 as circumstances may require. By thus attracting them 

 to the spot, they are often enabled to shoot the whole 

 brood in succession. The manner in which this is prac- 

 tised may be better understood from what Mr Grieff 

 says on the subject: 



"After the brood has been dispersed, and you see the 

 growth they have acquired, the dogs are to be bound up, 

 and a hut formed precisely on the spot where the birds 

 were driven from, in which you place yourself to call ; 

 and you adapt your call according to the greater or less 

 size of your young birds. When they are as large as 



