Li the Neighbourhood of Salisbury, 



167 



bird unwittingly g'ave rise to. I have a very fine old cock bird in 

 my collection, that came from Scotland about 1865. It weighed 

 between ten and eleven pounds, and was in its finest breeding 

 plumage, having' come to its untimely end in the middle of the 

 May month 9 when I discovered it in the flesh in a well-known bird 

 staffer's shop in London. There was an old man in my parish who 

 had spent all his life, and that a long one, in our water meadows, 

 and who had a keen eye for natural history specimens, always ob- 

 serving, and telling me of any uncommon bird that he came across. 

 But a specimen of the Capercaille he had never seen before. Now 

 my old parishioner had a son, of whom he was very proud, being 

 one of the first pupil teachers from this district who had entered the 

 training college at Winchester. His admiration for this pupil teacher 

 (or, as he called him in his own vernacular, " Bugle-Tatur ") knew 

 no bounds, and from him, during his vacation, spent under the 

 paternal roof, he picked up many a word, which was as new to him 

 as was Tetrao Urog alius himself. These words, of course, he was 

 accustomed to introduce into his conversation as frequently as pos- 

 sible, to show, doubtless, how subtil was the leaven of the training 

 college over all that it came in contact with. One of these words 

 was " apropos" One day he was looking over my collection, and 

 when he came before the Capercaillie he stopped in astonishment, 

 never having seen such a bird before ; and after being silent for 

 some time, during which be was taking in the bird's general ap- 

 pearance, and being evidently much struck with the strong curved 

 beak of the conifer cracker, he touched me on the shoulder, and 

 with that peculiar twinkle in the eye which tells that a man feels 

 he is treading on uncertain ground, he said a I should consider. Sir, 

 that that ere bird was h' apropos to a h' eagle " ; about as bad a shot 

 as any school-boy could make, who, putting a bold face upon it, 

 endeavours desperately to flounder through some passage of the 

 " Satires of Juvenal/' or "The Georgics," which he has never once 

 looked at, or, as we should say at Winchester, has taken up " ex- 

 trumps."" The poor old man has gone to his rest, but I never look 

 at the case without smiling at his mal-apropos suggestion. 



Tetrao Tetrix. "The Black Grouse." This bird can far more justly 



