126 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



has increased and multiplied since his re -intro- 

 duction into Scotland, in 1837 and 1838, too well 

 to please or suit the opinions of some owners and 

 renters of large estates. A few of the more recent 

 of these would, if they could, exterminate him again, 

 as they did after the year 1780. Yet this dislike 

 of a truly noble and useful bird arises from ignor- 

 ance of his habits. When gentlemen from the 

 South take their gamekeepers with them into the 

 North, these cannot, at first at any rate, be ex- 

 pected to have much practical knowledge of the 

 habits of the Northern game-birds. My own belief 

 is that the prejudice against the capercailzie is really 

 an unjust one, and an attempt to thin off the birds 

 to any great extent is but a poor return to those 

 sportsmen who, having the matter at heart, spared 

 neither trouble nor expense in order to reinstate 

 the capercailzie in his ancient haunts, thereby bene- 

 fiting both man and bird in the coming years. 



The only crime with which the bird is charged 

 is that of injuring and destroying the firs by break- 

 ing off the top shoots in perching on them, and 

 by nipping off the lateral shoots. I would plead 

 in defence that the capercailzie is quite innocent 



