CAPERCAILLIE 13 



Capers were scarce, and it is not one in every six that 

 comes near you ; in addition to which, if the bird is flying 

 at a good pace and is shot stone dead, there is little or no 

 movement on the part of the legs, as the back is paralysed. 

 However, a good chance at an old cock eventually offered 

 as he sailed past within twenty yards, and in my anxiety 

 to shoot him where I could see his motions clearly when I 

 fired, I contrived to hit him in the back, which was really 

 about the best thing I could have done, and his legs 

 seemed to me to at once drop from below his tail as he 

 came gradually to the ground some thirty yards behind. 

 I accordingly asked the keeper, who is a most observant 

 man, without letting him know what my opinion was, and 

 found that his ideas coincided with my own. But this 

 was hardly conclusive enough, so I spent the next days 

 we were shooting the woods and scaring the Capers in 

 lying flat on my back, watching them as they passed over- 

 head, with the same result. But here again arose another 

 difficultv, from the fact that the feathers on the bird's 



/ * 



legs were the same colour as those on the stomach, which 

 rendered an accurate view by no means certain. 



The Capercaillie is but a poor performer once he gets 

 on the ground, for his running powers, unlike the rest of his 

 species, are of the feeblest description. Both Grouse and 

 Blackganie, when wounded, will occasionally put a very 

 considerable distance between themselves and their per- 

 secutors, if given time to do so ; but the Caper seldom 

 moves many yards from the spot where he has fallen, and 

 prefers to creep into the first stump or inequality of the 

 ground that presents itself. Nothing ever seems to really 

 startle or frighten them, for every movement they perform 



