GROUSE AND PTARMIGAN. 



401 



Capercaillie. 



interbreeds with the red grouse, and more rarely with the willow-grouse, hazel-hen, 

 and pheasant, while crosses with domestic fowls have been known to occur. 



The largest members of the tribe are the capercaillie or wood- 

 grouse, inhabiting the pine-forests of Northern and Central Europe and 

 Asia. Three different species and one well-marked local; race are known, all of 

 which may be recognised by their very large size, as well as by their rounded tail 

 composed of eighteen feathers. The capercaillie {Tetrao urogallus) ranges through 

 Northern and Central Europe to Turkestan and the Altai, but in the Urals is 

 represented by a paler form, with the whole of the breast and under-parts white 

 in the male. In typical examples of the common species the breast and under- 

 parts are black, with some of the feathers in the middle of the breast tipped with 

 white, but numerous examples are to be met with in the London market in every 

 intermediate stage of plumage, and are believed to be imported from some of the 

 southern states of Russia, though the exact locality is uncertain. In North-East 



Vv- : 



BLACK-GAME IN THE SNOW. 



Siberia a different species (T. 2^ci'^'^^''^ostri8) occurs, while the third form 

 (T. kamschaticus) is confined to Kamschatka. These eastern birds are dis- 

 tinguished from the common species by . their smaller bill, and by the scapulars 

 being widely tipped with white ; the females being also much darker on the under- 

 parts. From one another they may be distinguished by the white tips of the 

 scapulars in the smaller Kamschatkan species being wide and forming a con- 

 tinuous white band, while in the Siberian bird they constitute an interrupted line 

 of white spots. Formerly indigenous in Scotland and Ireland, the capercaillie was 

 exterminated towards the end of the last century, but was reintroduced in 1837 

 into Scotland, and is now fairly plentiful in the counties of Perth, Stirling, and 

 Forfar. The capercaillie is polygamous ; and its nesting-habits and eggs are very 

 similar to those of black -game, the latter being buff spotted with reddish 

 brown. As many as twelve eggs are sometimes laid, but the capercaillie hen is a 

 bad mother, and seldom succeeds in rearing more than one or two of her somewhat 

 delicate young. The male is a remarkably wary bird, much harder to obtain than 

 the female, and it is astonishing, considering his large size and weight, how quietly 



VOL. IV. — 26 



