DAMAGE TO FORESTS. 137 



damage done in the strongest light. I am still of opinion, 

 however, that the final results exhibited in certain young trees 

 are just as likely to have been caused by beetles as by the 

 Capercaillies. If the buds are destroyed, whether by beetles 

 internally or by Capercaillies, whether in summer or in 

 winter, I believe the results will be the same, viz., as will be 

 seen farther on the trees becoming bushy, branchy, and 

 stunted. 



My friend Mr. J. J. Dalgleish owning an estate in 

 Perthshire, and having between 400 and 500 acres of pine, 

 larch, and spruce plantations of different ages inhabited by 

 Capercaillies informed me that old trees are not so much 

 damaged, because the birds cannot reach the terminal shoots. 

 Whenever the trees get old enough, and the birds cannot any 

 longer reach the top bud, the trees are safe. But on wood of 

 a certain age they and black game together inflict serious 

 injury. The result, in his opinion, is, that the trees become 

 stunted and bushy, and unless a new upward growth takes 

 place, soon become useless. 



Becoming interested in the subject of destruction to forest 

 plants and trees, I visited, in January 1878, a piece of ground 

 of fourteen acres in extent, or thereabouts, situated in the midst 

 of old pine wood of different ages, and which had been 

 planted six years previously with pine seedlings on the above- 

 mentioned estate. In one corner, facing the sun and the 

 south, and protected on the north and west by older growth, 

 the damage which the young trees had suffered was perhaps 

 most apparent. Upon this estate Capercaillies are tolerably 

 abundant, as many as four haying been shot in one day by a 

 party in 1877, and I have myself estimated the numbers- seen 

 in one day at least sixteen. Black game are scarce, and 

 have been so for a number of years ; but I have seen 

 black game driven out of the adjoining covers, and once 

 rising out of the above enclosure. The stunted, bushy, 



