CAPERCAILLIE 225 



before and take his reputation on trust from McArthur, 

 but I doubt not he is a good authority. Not f eehng quite 

 sure of the particular sense in which McLauchlan used 

 the expression " old bird," I applied to him again, asking 

 whether it signified antiquus, aduUus, or senex, and you 

 will see that he says it means the last. " Capull " (= 

 Caballus) you perceive he will not hear of. Please to 

 return me these letters at your convenience. 



My own opinion, so far as it is worth anything, is 

 that the Gaelic name of the bird ought to be spelt as 

 McLauchlan says, " Capercoille " — ^but the English or 

 Lowland Scotch, I think, should be Capercally, or Caper- 

 kally (plural — 'ies). The first of McLauchlan's letters 

 shows, I thinJc, how Sibbald's Capricalea came about — 

 " Gabhar," caper, the goat — ^but this is beside the 

 mark. 



Your explanation of the interchange of z and y in 

 old books is I think hardly sufficient, for they were used, 

 I will not gay indifferently, but at times one for the other, 

 long before the days of printing, and Old English MSS. 

 have a mysterious letter | or f about the pronunciation 

 of which some of the best Old Enghsh scholars are in 

 doubt ; for in some words it is modernized into gh, if I 

 remember right, frequently into y consonant, and less 

 commonly into z.* 



I am reaUy greatly indebted to you for all the trouble 



you have taken in re Caper , but I am still in doubt 



as to how I should best render the name in Enghsh. 

 The z is clearly not wanted, to say nothing of its being 

 misleading to a Southron, and it seems to me that its 

 retention savours of pedantry. It may be proper 

 enough in a proper name like Menzies, just as we have 

 people in England who stick to Smijth and ffolkes — ^the 

 " ij " in the first being merely a " y " marked to show it 

 is to be pronounced short, and the " ff " in the last 

 standing only for an initial or capital F. 



Pennant, who seems to have been the first British (as 



* Letter to Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, March 16, 1878. 



Q 



