CHAPTEK XVI. 



EXTENSION IN SUTHERLANDSHIKE. 



FOR the following account of the attempt at introduction 

 in Sutherland I am indebted to Mr. Thomas Mackenzie, 

 sheriff-substitute, Sutherland. " It may interest you to know 

 the result of an attempt made in 1870 by Mr. Chirnside 

 of Skibo to introduce Capercailzies into Sutherland. A 

 setting of ten eggs was obtained, I think, from Perthshire, 

 and these were all hatched out at Skibo. Five of the 

 young birds were handed over to the care of the game- 

 keeper of Mr. Gilchrist, of Ospisdale, the adjoining property, 

 but all of these died within three weeks. Of the five left 

 at Skibo, three arrived at maturity, when, unfortunately, 

 a weasel attacked and killed one of them, and during the 

 hubbub and confusion occasioned by this, the cock bird 

 would appear to have flown into the kennel of dogs, where 

 it was destroyed, for the feathers were afterwards found 

 there. The remaining bird, a hen, frequented the woods 

 about Skibo Castle for two years after this, and was last 

 seen in the garden in July 1872, after which it finally 

 disappeared. What its ultimate fate was I cannot learn with 

 certainty, but there are no Capercailzies at present on either 

 of the properties of Skibo or Ospisdale." 



Mr. Mackenzie further remarks " For an experiment on 

 so small a scale the result was not unpromising, and the 



