122 THE CAPERCAILLIE. 



the old Black Wood of Kannoch the remains of the Cale- 

 donian Forest which has a northerly exposure, and where, 

 until of late years, there has been but little fresh planting, 

 have failed. If proprietors drain their moors and trench their 

 forests upon the rapid system now so generally practised, I 

 doubt if they can expect to have black game as plentifully as 

 formerly. It is well known to naturalists that black game, 

 especially when young and tender, are particularly fond of 

 feeding in swampy rushy moor, or moist forest land, finding 

 there abundance of insect food suited to their tender age. It 

 is not until they reach a certain age that black game feed 

 persistently upon larch, birch, and Scotch fir " sprits." Take 

 away from them this rushy ground where their favourite, nay, 

 necessary food is found, and black game will leave or die out, 

 unless artificial feeding, perhaps, in some degree may avert 

 the calamity; which, however, I doubt. 



Again, I have it from various correspondents that in cer- 

 tain localities in the Tay valley and elsewhere, black game 

 have in no ways decreased, although Capercaillies have become 

 numerous ; and in several instances I have elicited the fur- 

 ther information that at some of the said localities draining 

 has not taken place to any extent for a number of years. 



At Arden, on Loch Lomond, as I am informed by my 

 friend Mr. James Lumsden (who for some time back has been 

 working at the distribution of black game in Scotland), there 

 are no Capercaillies. Black game, nevertheless, have been 

 decidedly on the decrease, even rapidly, during the last eight 

 or nine years, which is the time which has elapsed since drain- 

 ing operations on a considerable scale were commenced upon 

 the estate. There has also been a curtailing of the acreage of 

 cropped land along the moor edges, cropping having been 

 replaced by grazing. Cropping, I hold, of course, as an arti- 

 ficial mode of feeding black game ; still this, at least, proves 

 another " environing cause " for their decrease. Every year 



