236 GALLIFORMES 



CHAP. 



choosing some horizontal tough or convenient spot of ground 

 whereon to display himself with drooping wings, expanded tail, 

 and inflated air-sacs. Rarely can an observer gain a view, so 

 misleading is the ventriloquistic effect of the sound. The nest, 

 commonly placed beneath a branch or near a tussock, is a mere 

 depression in the soil lined with herbage, leaves, or fir-needles. 

 The eight to twelve eggs are creamy-buff, with round brown dots. 



Canachites (Canace} canadensis, the Canada Grouse or " Spruce- 

 Partridge," found from Alaska and British America to the north- 

 eastern United States, is black, with lead-coloured bars above, and 

 a white pectoral band below, the tail having a chestnut tip, which 

 is wanting in the browner C. franklini of the north-western 

 Rocky Mountains. In the female the grey is chiefly replaced by 

 orange. It is a tame species, and flies but a short distance before 

 alighting on some tree. The food consists of " spruce " buds and 

 larch needles, with berries of Vaccinium (bilberry, cranberry, 

 etc.), Empetrum (crowberry), and so forth. It is not polygamous ; 

 but a most curious account of the cock's habits of showing off 

 and drumming is given by Bendire. 1 The hen constructs a nest 

 of dry moss, leaves, and twigs upon the ground, under shelter of 

 some overhanging bough, and lays from eight to eighteen reddish- 

 buff eggs with brown spots. Falcipennis hartlaubi, a very similar 

 species, distinguished by slender sickle-shaped outer primaries, 

 occurs in North-East Siberia, Kamtschatka, and Saghalien. 



Tetrao urogallus, the Capercaillie, apparently not uncommon in 

 Scotland until 1770, and exterminated in Ireland about the same 

 date, was reintroduced at Taymouth Park, Perthshire, in 1838, 

 and is now fairly plentiful in Central North Britain. Failure has 

 attended similar attempts in Ireland. The discoveries of bones 

 in Teesdale and near Torquay shew that this bird's range once 

 extended to Yorkshire and Devonshire, while similar finds have 

 been made in Aquitaine and Denmark. At the present day it 

 inhabits sub-alpine pine-forests from Scandinavia, the Pyrenees, 

 North Italy, and Greece to Lake Baikal and the Altai Mountains, 

 being represented in the Urals by a sub-species, T. uralensis. The 

 male is almost entirely blackish -grey above, with somewhat 

 darker tail, and black below with greenish chest. The female is 

 smaller, and is mottled with brown, buff, black, and white, merging 

 into rufous on the breast, which is barred with black. A variable 



1 Life Histories of N. Amer. Birds, Special Bull. i. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1892, pp. 52-56. 



