WILD BIRDS SUSCEPTIBLE OF DOMESTICATION. 



293 



with a call something resembling Peller, peller, 

 l>eller ! these sounds he repeats at some little 

 intervals, but as he proceeds they increase in 

 rapidity, until at last, and after perhaps the lapse 

 of a minute or so, he makes a sort of gulp in 

 his throat, and finishes with sucking in, as it 

 were, his breath. 



" The play of the capercaillie is not loud, and 

 should there be wind stirring in the trees at the 

 time, it can not be heard at any considerable 

 distance. Indeed, during the calmest and most 

 favorable weather, it is not audible at more than 

 two to three hundred paces. 



"On hearing the call of the cock, the hens, 

 whose cry in some degree resembles the croak 

 of the raven, or rather, perhaps, the sounds 

 Gock, gock, gock ! assemble from all parts of the 

 surrounding forests. The male bird now de- 

 scends from the eminence on which he was 

 perched to the ground, where he and his female 

 friends join in company. The capercaillie does 

 not play indiscriminately over the forest, but he 

 has his certain stations for his playing-grounds. 

 These, however, are often of some little extent. 

 Here, unless very much persecuted, the song of 

 these birds may be heard in the spring for years 

 together. The capercaillie does not, during his 

 play, confine himself to any particular tree, as 

 Mr. Nilsson asserts to be the cass, for, on the 

 contrary, it is seldom he is to be met with ex- 

 actly on the same spot for two days in succes- 

 sion." 



The female makes her nest upon the ground, 

 and lays from six to twelve eggs ; her brood 

 keep with her till the approach of winter, but 

 the cocks separate from the mother before the 

 hens. The food of this bird consists of the leaves 

 of the Scotch fir, of juniper-berries, cranberries, 

 blueberries, and occasionally in winter of the 

 birch. The young are sustained at first on in- 

 sects, and especially the larvae of ants. In the 

 male the wind-pipe makes a loose fold, or two 

 curves, before it enters the chest, gaining by 

 this contrivance great increase of length. 



The general color of the males on the upper 

 part is chestnut-brown, irregularly marked with 

 blackish lines ; the breast glossy, greenish black, 

 passing into black on the upper surface ; elon- 

 gated feathers of the throat black ; tail black. 



In the female the head, the neck, and back are 

 marked with transverse bars of red and black ; 

 the under surface is pale orange-yellow, barred 

 with black. Nilsson assures us that the caper- 

 caillie is often reared up in a domestic state in 

 Sweden, and is bold and disposed to attack 

 persons, like the turkey-cock; and both this 

 naturalist and Mr. Lloyd affirm that these birds 

 will breed with due care in confinement; in 

 fact, they give several instances by way of 

 proof. Beckstein states that the cock of the 

 wood will breed with the black grouse, and 

 even with the domestic fowl and turkey. 



In the early part of spring the markets of 

 London are supplied with these birds in abund- 

 ance from Norway, and owing to the rapidity of 

 steam navigation, the birds are almost as fresh 

 as if just shot, opening well for many days. 

 The flesh of the females is excellent. 



THE GROUSE. 



With regard to the true grouse, it is of the 

 moorland and heath, the wild plain and the 

 mountain, the barren rock and the dense pine 

 forests, that they are the respective tenants. 

 Some naturalists class them all, together with 

 the partridges and quails, in one genus tetra ; 

 others, however, have subdivided this genus into 

 many, but often on very superficial grounds. 



The grouse, celebrated for the exquisite fla- 

 vor of its flesh, inhabits an extensive range of 

 this country ; open dry plains, interspersed with 

 trees partially overgrown with shrub-oak, being 

 its favorite haunts. They were formerly found 

 on the bushy plains of Long Island ; on the 

 grouse plains ef New Jersey ; over the whole 

 extent of the barrens of Kentucky ; on the rich 

 prairies of Indiana and Illinois. They are com- 

 mon at Moose Fort, on Hudson's Bay ; and were 

 found by Lewis and Clarke in crossing the Rocky 

 Mountains, and on the vast and remote plains 

 of the Columbia River. 



THE RUFFED GROUSE. 



This well-known American bird is called 

 partridge in New York and the New England 

 States, pheasant in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 

 and the Southern States, although neither the 

 partridge nor pheasant is found in America. 



