THE WOOD-GROUSE. 181 



ORDER GALLING. 



The Wood-Grouse. Cock of the Wood, or Capercaile. 



Tetrao Urogallus. 



THIS beautiful bird, once abundant in the High- 

 lands of Scotland, is now become rare. Its 

 length is nearly three feet, and the extent of its 

 wings nearly four. It is about the month of 

 March or April, when the buds of the beech- 

 tree begin to unfold, that the wood-grouse is to 

 be seen in his summer retreats, among his native 

 wooded mountains. 



In a fanciful mood we might be almost in* 

 clined to give this bird the credit of being a lover 

 of the picturesque. His chosen resort is said, 

 generally, to be some mountain declivity, ex- 

 posed to the earliest beams of the rising sun, in 

 the neighbourhood of a torrent, and where the 

 lofty pine-trees grow, furnishing him at once 

 with a resting-place by night, and a tower of ob- 

 servation by day. On one of these pines the 

 male bird may be found uttering the cry peculiar 

 to his species, at the sound of which the females 



