The Capercaillie 
9 
During gales they spend much time on the wing, flying from wood to wood. 
Falling trees or thunderstorms seem to render them nervous for many days. 
Capercaillie alight much like black grouse, but make a slight flapping in the final 
movement. They stand erect for a few moments and then walk sedately away, or run 
swiftly into the nearest bushes. I have never seen them squat at once, as black and 
red grouse frequently do. The males walk and run more erectly, and are not nearly 
so swift in their movements as the females. It takes an active young man to catch 
a running hen Caper. I saw a female Capercaillie by the roadside in Norway in 1907, 
and ran after her at once, but she outstripped me and rose out of shot. 
The food consists of a great variety of fruit, cereals, vegetable, and insects. In the 
autumn they are very fond of repairing to fields where the grain has been cut, and 
sitting on the stooks, make a meal of oats, much after the manner of grouse or black- 
game. In August, too, their principal food is blueberries and raspberries, and a thicket 
of the latter is a sure find for females and young at this season, when of course they 
should not be killed. In September I have seen them in the turnip fields, but this 
is rare ; and out on the heather, which I think they must eat occasionally. In summer 
the females and young are as fond of an ant's nest as any pheasant, and they will 
also eat the young shoots of bracken. Grass and a great variety of plant life and seeds 
also form their menu. They also eat quantities of Indian corn put down for pheasants, 
for which reason a senseless antagonism to these noble birds has grown up amongst 
lazy and unobservant gamekeepers. Doubtless the hens of both species quarrel a little at 
the feeding-boxes, and the lesser birds get hurt sometimes, but the results in damage to 
pheasants are too trifling to be worthy of notice. Hen pheasants, too, often lay their eggs 
in the nests of female Capercaillie, and the latter are blamed for disturbing the former. 
It is not until the month of October that Capercaillie may be said to take to the 
trees for food. I have never seen them eat anything from the end of October till April 
but the shoots of the Scotch fir. Several times I have heard the noise made by a 
covey of Capercaillie feeding on a frosty winter's day, and have crept up to within 
a few yards of the party and observed their actions. The females alone make any 
sound, uttering a low " coq-coq " as they step along the branches and reach for the 
points, which they nip off smartly with a jerk of the head. Often they partly over- 
balance themselves in reaching for a choice morsel, and their flapping wings can be 
heard at some distance. Every few minutes the whole party becomes petrified, as it 
were, into rigid silence. All stand erect to look and listen. This is the moment when 
the slightest motion or sound will attract their attention and cause an immediate dispersal. 
The winter diet is principally of the leaves, buds, and shoots of the Scotch fir. Mr. 
M. Dunn {The Capercaillie in Scotland, p. 132) says the crop of a male he examined in 
November 1873 contained "203 points of shoots of Scots fir, with the leading buds 
entire ... 11 pieces of young wood i\ to 2^ inches long, having leaves attached, but 
no terminal buds, and 52 buds— making in all 266 shoots and buds, besides a large 
handful of single leaves of the Scots fir, which the bird had devoured at one meal." In 
the crop of one examined in April 1874, he found the contents to be "wholly the young 
shoots, leaves, and buds of larch," counting the number at 918 buds in the crops, besides 
the bits of shoots and leaves, which formed by far the bulkiest part of the whole. A 
B 
