CAPERCAILLIE. 
beetleSj caterpillars, or aphides ; coccus or scale insects may he upon the trees, but not on the wood or 
leaves eaten by the Capercaillie. This is the opinion of all my correspondents who have paid any 
attention to the matter, corroborated by my own experience. Of the very many ‘ crops ’ of the 
Capercaillie which I have dissected and carefully examined, none contained any traces of the bird 
having fed u^ion insects. In the winter the crops are usually entirely filled with the leaves, buds, and 
young shoots of the Scotch fir. The contents of one ‘crop’ of a male bird, which I examined in 
Kovember 1873, were as follows: — 203 points of shoots of Scotch fir, Avith the leading buds entire, some 
of the shoots being fully 3 inches long; 11 pieces of young wood, 1|^ to 2^ inches long, having leaves 
attached but no terminal buds ; and 52 buds — making in all 2G6 shoots and buds, besides a large 
handful of single leaves, of the Scotch fir, which the birds had devoured at one meal. The Avhole were 
quite fresh and green, were to all appearance selected from a A^ery healthy tree, and showed no trace 
AvhateA’er of OA-er haA'ing been attacked by the pine-beetle [Uylurgus pineperda) or any other insect ; 
and most certainly there Avere no other insects in the crop. The contents of the crop I presented to 
the Edinburgh Botanical Society, and they can noAV be seen in the Museum of the Society in the 
Botanic Gardens. In another crop, which I examined in April 1871, I found the contents to be 
AA’holly the young shoots, leaves, and buds of larch. I counted the extraordinary number of 918 buds 
alone in the ‘crop,’ besides the bits of shoots and leaves, which formed by far the bulkiest part of the 
aaLoIo. There Avere but a few bits (three) of silvery lichen amongst the contents, but nothing else; 
these pieces of lichen no doubt were picked up along Avith the other contents of the crop, and do not 
form a part of the regular food of the bird. These are given as fair samjdes of many crops I have 
examined, received chiefly from Perthshire, Mr. Brown having sent me about a score in 1871. In 
none of them did I eA'er meet Avith a pine-beetle, or any other insect that Avould lead me to suppose 
that the bird preys upon insects, or had a preference for shoots Avhich AA^ere infected by them. In fact, 
I should maintain that the bird prefers clean, healthy, fresh food, and has no taste for damaged or 
decaying vegetation of any kind. I have never examined the crop of a young bird taken out of the 
nest; but I have analysed the crops of several birds of the same year in July and August, and failed 
in every instance to find any insects, so that, although I am aware that it is said in books that they are 
fond of insects, especially when young, I am unable to corroborate the assertion. The nature and 
habits of the birds do not in any way lead me even to suppose it feeds on insects; but in other parts 
0 le AA or ^ m Norway for instance— it may feed on different matter to Avhat it does in Scotland. Since 
made my investigations anent the injury done by the Capercaillie, &c., to forest trees, I have also 
investigated the injury done by insects. The injury done by the pine-beetle to the Scotch firs is in no 
Avajs ana ogous. The beetle does its injury internally by eating the pith of the shoots and the heart 
the buds; the Capercaillie ‘lops’ the shoots, buds, and leaves clean off, and the one cannot by any 
possibility be mistaken for the other; besides the injury is done by the beetle in the middle of summer^ 
e mos seiious injury is done by the bird in the winter, when the beetles are liybernatino' in or 
on dead wood on the ground. The beetle attacks almost any pine tree, sick or healthy, any size or ’any 
ago; only, as it climbs from the ground to the branches, small trees, say under 25 years of a^e arl 
arard™ ^i Capercaillies, on the other hand, attack only healthy trees of any rfz’e or 
sttned o 1 r“° “ continuously, till it is completely 
n f 11 1 ^ grOMing points, and, of course, most seriously injuring it, and rendering it 
perfectly useless for timber. If the bird is kept within due limits (in numbers) the inLnheTl 
rnimaterial to t^ general welfare of our forests; but if they become very numerous, they wiU cLtly 
play havoc with the pine and larch plantations in their neighbourhood, especially young planTatfons 
Blackgame at certain places are just about as injurious to young pine and larch trees.? the ovt 
