440 BRITISH BIRDS. 



TETRAO UROGALLUS. 

 CAPERCAILLIE. 



(PLATE 21.) 



Lagopus urogallus major, Briss. Orn. i. p. 182 (1760). 



Tetrao urogallus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 273 (1766) ; et auctorum plurimorum 



Latham, Temminck, Naumann, Dresser, Saundei-s, &c. 

 Tetrao major, Brehm, Vog. Deutschl. p. 503 (1831). 



In the British Islands the Capercaillie, Capercailzie, or Wood -Grouse, 

 as it is variously called, appears to be confined to the counties of Perth and 

 Forfar, in Scotland, and a few adjoining districts. These birds were intro- 

 duced into this locality in the year 1837 by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. 

 They appear to have been previously exterminated, both in Scotland and 

 Ireland, towards the end of the last century. The only evidence of their 

 ever having inhabited England is to be found in the occurrence of the 

 bones of this species in the caves of Teesdale and amongst the Roman 

 remains at Settle in North Yorkshire. The latest record of the occurrence 

 of this bird in Ireland is that of Pennant, who states that about the year 

 1760 it was to be found in Tipperary. In Scotland the same author 

 mentions an example obtained north of Inverness. 



The range of the Capercaillie is very similar to that of the Black Grouse. 

 In Scandinavia it extends as far north as lat. 70 ; and in Russia and 

 Siberia as far east as the valley of the Yenesay up to about lat. 67. 

 Where it has not been exterminated the bird is an inhabitant of the pine- 

 regions of Europe, and is still found as far south as the Spanish slopes of 

 the Pyrenees and throughout the Cantabrian chain. In the Alps it is still 

 found on the eastern Italian slope ; but its occurrence in Greece appears 

 to be doubtful, as it has not been obtained by recent travellers ; nor has 

 its occurrence in the Balkans been accurately determined. It is found in 

 the high forests of the Carpathians ; but appears to be absent from South 

 Russia. In South Siberia it is a resident in the Altai Mountains, its 

 range extending into North-eastern Turkestan, where it breeds at an 

 elevation of from 8000 to 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. It is 

 found as far east as Lake Baikal ; but east of the valley of the Yenesay, 

 ranging beyond East Siberia through Mantchooria into North China, it is 

 represented by a perfectly distinct species, Tetrao urogalloides, a bird with 

 a longer and more graduated tail, with a glossy purple and green head and 

 neck, and with much more white on the wing-coverts and the upper tail- 

 coverts, but with no white on the tail. Taczanowsky has described a third 



