140 THE CAPERCAILLIE. 



these are not found to be doing well the Capercaillie is 

 blamed ; but I think it is the seedsman who is at fault, and 

 more care should be taken to see that the young Scotch fir 

 plants are of the right sort, when the plantation will be found 

 to do well enough, though there are a good many Capercaillies 

 in it." (Sir R. Menzies, Bart., in lit.) 



Further, Mr. Eobert Collett of Christiania, in reply to 

 inquiries I made of him regarding destruction done to forests 

 in Norway and Sweden, writes : " In Norway there is not 

 any trace of destruction to the forests done by the Capercaillie. 

 Certainly they do live in winter almost exclusively on the 

 leaves of the fir (Pinus sylvestris), but they only take some 

 shoots here and some there ; for the most part from old or at 

 least not young trees. 



We find here (as well as in much other correspondence I 

 have had on the subject) great discrepancy between the 

 accounts of different authorities as regards the age of the 

 wood at the time it is affirmed to be destroyed by Caper- 

 caillies. One affirms that it is only the young plants that 

 are injured, and that the birds stand on the ground and pick 

 out the " sprits," or leading buds ; another states his convic- 

 tion to be that they " will not pick out the tops while stand- 

 ing on the ground," and that they cannot reach the top 

 shoots when the tree is grown, owing to these top shoots not 

 being strong enough to bear their weight. 1 I cannot say if it 

 is positively correct to state that they will not feed while 

 standing on the ground ; but it has been shown or recorded 

 that they do sit upon the topmost shoots of smaller trees at 

 " lek " time, in such localities as are destitute of larger trees. 

 Dresser tells us (' Birds of Europe^ part xxi.), " They used some 

 of the smaller trees for their ' lek ;' and it was easy to dis- 



1 If they cannot reach the top shoots, then they must be content with 

 side shoots, and thus become, to a certain extent, nature's pruners, as shown 

 by the opinion of several naturalists. 



