

CAPERCAILLIE. 329 



all times with water and sand ; the latter was of a coarse 

 quality, and both were changed pretty frequently." 



"It has been asserted that the Capercali will not breed 

 when in a state of domestication : this is altogether a mis- 

 take ; repeated experience has proved the contrary. A 

 few years ago I procured a brace of those birds, consisting 

 of a cock and hen, for a friend of mine, Thomas Fowell 

 Buxton, Esq. the member for Weymouth, then resident at 

 Cromer Hall, in Norfolk. After a few months, the hen 

 laid six eggs, and from these, in process of time, six Ca- 

 percali were produced. The chicks lived until they had 

 attained a very considerable size, when, owing to the effects, 

 as it was supposed, of a burning sun, to which they had 

 been incautiously exposed, the whole of them, together 

 with the mother, died. On this mishap, the old cock, the 

 only survivor, was turned loose into the game preserves, 

 where he remained in a thriving condition for about a year 

 and a half. At last, however, he also met his doom, 

 though this was supposed to have been owing rather to 

 accidental than natural causes. In farther corroboration of 

 the fact, that the Capercali will breed when in confinement, 

 I make the following quotation from M. Nilsson^s work. 

 That gentleman 1 s authority was the Ofwer Director of 

 Uhr, and the birds alluded to were at a forge in the pro- 

 vince of Dalecarlia. They were kept together during the 

 winter in a large loft over a barn, and were fed with corn, 

 and got occasionally a change of fresh spruce, fir, pine, and 

 juniper sprigs. Early in the spring they were let out into 

 an enclosure near the house, protected by a high and close 

 fence, in which were several firs and pines, the common 

 trees of the place. In this enclosure they were never dis- 

 turbed ; and during the season of incubation no one ap- 

 proached, except the person who laid in the food, which at 



