ii6 THE GUN: AFIELD A^D AFLOAT 



the wilder and least-cultivated districts, capercaillies 

 still have a taste for grain, and so sportsmen will 

 frequently find them visiting the cornfields far removed 

 from their roosting quarters. . 



The male capercaillie is, if we except the bustard, the 

 largest of British game-fowl. Fully adult birds measure 

 three feet in length, their weight sometimes exceeding 

 10 Ib. ; in fact, birds weighing as much as 14 Ib. have 

 occasionally been killed. The hen capercaillie is not 

 nearly so large a bird, her weight being about half that 

 of the male ; nor is her appearance so striking, for her 

 plumage, a quietly-toned and unassuming brown, lacks 

 the handsome metallic green lustre of her darker- 

 plumaged mate. In Scotland the hen capercaillie nests 

 during the latter half of May ; the eggs vary in number 

 from six to a dozen or more, and incubation lasts about 

 a month. 



THE BLACK GROUSE. (Tetrao 



The black grouse is not so peculiarly and entirely a 

 British possession as is its congener the red grouse. 

 Continental sportsmen are justly proud to have so fine a 

 game-bird as the blackcock, which by French chasseurs 

 is styled, " Coq de bruyere a queue forchu " fork-tailed 

 heathcock ; in Germany it bears the equally expressive, 

 though scarcely less formidable title, " Gabel schvvanziges 

 waldhuhn " fork-tailed wood fowl. Either term, by the 

 way, must prove a somewhat awkward mouthful for the 

 anxious gamekeeper, in a hurry to inform his ambushed 

 line of guns that blackcock are coming over. 



Formerly, black grouse existed in various districts 

 suitable to their requirements throughout England and 



