CANARY— CAPERCAILZIE 249 



c 



CANARY.— Canairi. 



CAPERCAILZIE. — Aur-coille ; Cabar, capar^ caper, capull- 

 coille, caprioc, coileach-coille. 



Cock of the mountain ; Great cock of the wood, great grouse ; 

 Mountain cock ; Wood-grouse. 



The following interesting variations in the appellation of this 

 noble bird are as follow: — Auercalze, aueicailye (Burt, 1754); this 

 word is akin to "abhair" or "aiver,*' a horse — for size and 

 strength, so also '^capull," etc. ; Caiper-caillie, capercailye 

 (Bellenden, 1553); capercalye and capercalyeane (Jameson, 1808- 

 1825), capercailles (Chron. of Scotd., (1436), (1813),) capercaillie 

 (King James VI., 1617), capercaile (Foster, 1817), capercaly, caper- 

 caillie (Blaine), capercali (Lloyd, Game Birds of Stveden), caper- 

 cally and caperkally (Newton — Encyc. Brit. — quoting Pennant), 

 capercalze (Bishop Leslie, 1675-1758; also in Scots Acts, Jas. VI., 

 1621), caperkalzeis, capercailzie (MacGillivray), cobber-kelly 

 (Burt, 1754 — as if from cflA«r), capercaleg (Sir R. Gordon, (1630) 

 (1813),) capricalca (Sibbald), capercayllie (Gregor on Game-Laws, 

 1837), capircalyeane (Dunbar's poems, before 1520), capercoilzie 

 (Travellers Guide, 1798); Horse-cock; Urugallus fcemina, hen of 

 the wood or mountain (F. Willoughby, 1676), urugallus major 

 (J. Rutty, 1772), urogallus tetrao major aldrov, Fcemina grygallus 

 major, Gesu et Aberovando dicitur (Sibbald, Scotia illustrata') ; 

 Celiog coed (Anc. Brit.). 



The following explanation of this bird, obtained by Harvie 

 Brown from eminent Celtic scholars, gives all that is supposed to 

 be necessary: — 



Dr Maclachlan, Edinburgh, says : " Cabhar," pronounced 

 "cavar," means, according to our dictionaries, a hawk or old bird. 

 It is not at all unlikely that it is the word spelled Capar. There 

 is a similar word used in the name for a snipe — Gabhar-athar, 

 thought by some to mean the goat of the air, from its bleating 

 note; but it is a masc. noun, and "gabhar," a goat, is fem. I 

 therefore lean to the idea that both in cabhar-athar and Cahhar- 

 coille — the one being the bird of the air, and the other the bird of the 

 ivoods — the original term is Cabhar. Caber-coille is the orthography 

 which comes nearest to the original. The M^ord " cabhar " is not 

 one in common use, and we are indebted for its meaning to our 

 dictionaries, except in so far as it may enter into the formation of 

 words like Capercoille. The Latin senex, so far as I apprehend, 

 comes nearest to the meaning of "old" in cabhar, not antiquus. 

 There is a playful way of applying such words to the formation 

 of names in Gaelic. For example, Bodach is an old man, and 

 Bodach-ruadh, the red old mati, is the rock cod. Cailleach is an 



