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dress, and as it is scarcely possible for any individual to approach closer to the male bird in 

 appearance, the sterile females can probably always be distinguished from the males by the 

 following peculiarities of plumage : — the beard-like feathers on the throat speckled with white, 

 bill dark, tail finely speckled with greyish red (without the large white spots of the male 

 Capercaillie)." 



Sundevall gives its range in Sweden as extending as far north as the pine-woods grow ; and 

 Pastor Sommerfelt states that it breeds in South Varanger, and is occasionally met with in the 

 autumn on the Tana. I met with it in Finland in almost every part of the country I visited, 

 and frequently saw them when travelling through the northern. portion and driving along the 

 forest roads. In Russia, especially in the Government of Archangel it is very numerous, and 

 vast numbers are sent to the St. -Petersburg market every season. Mr. Sabanaeff informs me that 

 it is especially numerous in the Governments of Vladimir, Tver, and Smolensk, and the forests 

 in the northern part of the Government of Perm. 



In some parts of Germany it is still not uncommon ; Borggreve states that " it is a resident 

 in North Germany, and until quite lately was to be met with in all the large forests ; it is still 

 found in Silesia, the Thuringer Wald, and in Westphalia (Sauerland), rarer in the Harz, and 

 tolerably common in the mountains of the Weser and the Westerwald. There have been none 

 in the mountains on the left bank of the Rhine for the last fifteen years. On the plains a few 

 still are to be met with in the Gorlitzer Stadtwald and a few of the larger forests in Upper 

 Silesia, Prussia, and Pomerania." Mr. A. von Homeyer states that in 1868 the official records 

 of the foresters of the Gorlitzer forest stated that seventy-six "drumming" cocks were counted 

 there in the spring. According to Tobias it breeds near Carolath and Primkenau; and Pastor 

 Passler records it as breeding annually in the forests of the Ramberg (Anhalt). In Denmark it 

 is now quite extinct. Sir John Lubbock, in his paper on the " Danish Kjokkenmoddings," pub- 

 lished in the 'Nat. Hist. Review,' 1861, draws attention to the fact that the remains of the 

 Capercailzie (Tetrao urogallus) are found in these rubbish-heaps of the ancient inhabitants of 

 Denmark. Its absence from that country at the present day points to an interesting change in 

 the flora and fauna of that part of Europe, the extensive pine-forests that must have afforded food 

 and shelter to this bird having given place to the beech and other hard-wood growth. 



In Holland and Belgium it seems to be almost extinct ; but, according to Degland and Gerbe, 

 it is still found in some of the wooded districts in the latter country, and also " occurs in the 

 mountain-forests of the French Vosges and Pyrenees and the Jura ; but it is doubtful if it still 

 exists in the mountains of Auvergne." Delarbre records it as having been seen early in the 

 present century in the Noriche and the Catelade, near Oliergues, in the forest of Menet, in 

 Auvergne, and in those of Mont-Dore. Formerly it must have been met with in the south of 

 France, as M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, in his great work on the fossil birds of France, records 

 remains of this species as having been found in the bone-caverns. Regarding its occurrence in 

 Spain, Lord Lilford writes as follows : — " I have heard on unquestionable authority that it is by 

 no means uncommon in certain suitable localities in the provinces of Leon, Asturias, and Galicia* 

 and is known as ' Faisan ' and ' Gallo de Bosque.' I could not find out that it was known on the 

 Spanish side of the Pyrenees, in Aragon, during my visit to that district in 1867, though it 

 undoubtedly exists on the French side." 



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