590 FURTHER NOTES ON 



' Manuel d'Ornith.' ed. 1, pt. ii. pp. 459-460, and by Meyer, 

 in his ' Vogel Liv- und Esthlands.' Nevertheless many 

 naturalists still hold the Middle Wood-Grouse to be a hybrid 

 between the hen Capercaillie and the Blackcock. Dr. Nilsson, 

 for instance, who emphatically declares that, after carefully 

 interrogating the Swedish and Finnish sportsmen, he elicited 

 the fact that the Hybrid Cock is only found where the cock 

 Capercaillies have been so thinned by over-shooting that the 

 hens have been obliged to betake themselves to the drumming- 

 places of the Blackcock, <fec. &c." 



From this one sees how strongly the old authority, Brehm, 

 held the belief that Tetrao medius was a true species, and not 

 a cross, and the grounds which he gives for so doing are 

 good, if not, as it seems, quite unimpeachable. Seven pages 

 of his book are devoted to this discussion ; but from all the 

 excellent and very learned arguments that he adduces I will, 

 for want of space, only quote for my readers one passage 

 which bears very strongly upon the special case which we are 

 now considering. It runs thus : " And all the Hybrid Cocks 

 hitherto seen are so exactly similar in colour. Does this 

 agree with other observations on the colour of hybrids ? It 

 is evident that the Middle Wood -Grouse, if it be a cross, has 

 nothing of the mother about it, with the slight exception of 

 the head, the chin-feathers (' Bart '), and the size of the body ; 

 but even in all these parts it bears a certain resemblance to 

 the Blackcock. 



" It really is a large Black-Grouse with a clipped tail, not 

 unlike that of the Greyhen. No special home can, however, 

 be assigned to the Middle Wood- Grouse, yet what does this 

 matter ? There are plenty of birds which are universally un- 

 common. The Lapp Owl (Strix lapponica) , for example, and 

 many others. Why should not the Middle Wood- Grouse be 

 everywhere rare and yet a distinct species ? Besides, Tem- 

 minck, in speaking of the Middle Wood-Grouse, explicitly 



