174 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



CHAPTER VII. 



BRITISH GAME-BIRDS. 



OUR game-birds have been so exhaustively written 

 about by competent authorities, that if the present 

 chapter treated of sporting matters I should feel 

 diffident about offering it to my readers. I do not 

 propose to give more than some notes by a wander- 

 ing field-naturalist, whose delight it is to watch the 

 habits of those creatures that by good luck may come 

 in his way, a delight unmixed with the slightest 

 desire to kill any one of them. 



The capercaillie, wood-grouse, or cock of the wood, is 

 the king of his family. He was at one time a native 

 of the pine-forests of Great Britain, lingering on in 

 Ireland until about the year 1760, and in Scotland 



