PLATE II 

 CAPERCAILLIE. Tetra o urogallus 



May loM, 1893. Coming through the big wood at the Lake of Monteith 

 one evening, I walked across to examine a very curious rowan-tree. Two 

 saplings had been bent over and plaited together to form an arch by some 

 person, and they had increased in girth to nearly a foot in one case, and quite 

 two feet in the other. At the foot of the larger of the trees I saw a hen 

 Capercaillie sitting on her nest among the blaeberries; so I went quietly 

 away without disturbing her, as it was too dark to photograph her. 



I returned next day and found her on the nest, and succeeded in getting 

 my camera set up within range and all ready focussed, but she took fright at 

 the click of my time-shutter, and flew off suddenly, spoiling the plate, so I 

 had to content myself with a photograph of the nest. It was simply a hollow 

 in the ground at the foot of the rowan-tree among the blaeberries, and was 

 slightly lined with a little dead grass and a few beech-leaves, a few of the 

 bird's feathers being also in and around the nest, which contained six eggs 

 pretty highly incubated, to judge from the lameness of the bird. 



I visited this wood again in 1895, and found that the greater part of it 

 had been razed to the ground by the gale in the previous year. The trees 

 were lying so thick that it was quite impenetrable, and the keeper told me 

 that he had not seen a Caper's nest that year, as the birds were probably all 

 nesting in the inaccessible part of the tangle among the fallen trees. There 

 was hardly a single tree left standing, those which had held firm at the roots 

 being snapped off like matches about ten or twelve feet from the ground. 



'5 



