42 THE CAPERCAILLTE. 



3d. The food would appear to have been not altogether 

 suitable, if we accept Mr. Lloyd's directions for feeding Caper- 

 caillies in confinement (' Game Birds and Wild Fowl of 

 Sweden ') ; and the general treatment in minor matters was 

 probably deficient, from want of experience. The disease 

 mentioned above by Mr. Wilson, of which one of the young 

 birds died, and the deaths of the other young birds, were prob- 

 ably caused by some slight hitch in the general management 

 of food and shelter. Even the wild birds, when young, are 

 stated to be subject to 'gapes,' by more than one of my 

 correspondents. Further, birds reared under domestic hens 

 have never succeeded well; and we now know that the 

 best way to treat the eggs is to place them out in the woods 

 under wild grey hens, and to turn out the birds themselves to 

 breed in a state of nature, after the woods have become par- 

 tially stocked by the eggs hatched out under grey hens. 1 



It was a considerable time after the above attempt that 

 any one earnestly took up the idea of re-introducing the species. 

 " Years ago," writes Mr. Lloyd (op. cit., p. 34), " I volunteered 

 my services to more than one influential proprietor in Scot- 

 land. . . . For a long time no one would move in the matter, 

 but at length, in the autumn of 1836, the late Sir Thomas 

 Fowell Buxton, then recently returned from Taymouth Castle 

 . . . took up the affair in good earnest." ..." Influenced by 

 the desire, in which I am sure you will concur," so writes Sir 

 Thomas to Mr. Lloyd, " to introduce these noble birds into 

 Scotland, coupled with that of making Lord Breadalbane some 

 return for his recent kindness to me, 2 1 request you to procure 

 for his lordship, at whatever cost, the requisite number." Sir 

 Thomas also placed at Mr. Lloyd's disposal his head game- 



1 A further short account of the Capercaillies at Mar Lodge is given by 

 Dick-Lauder in his ' Account of the Great Floods of August 1829,' p. 358. 



2 Vide 'Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.,' fifth edition, 

 edited by his son Charles Buxton, Esq., B.A. London, 1852. Chap, xxiv 

 p. 332. 



