CAPERCAILLIE SHOOTING 
climbing over fallen timber and crashing through fern brakes, we arrived 
home soaked to the skin, having seen one small sodden hen, which was 
shot, and disturbed another. 
On leaving a tree in a wood the Capercaillie makes a loud flapping noise 
and falls several feet earthwards to clear the branches before getting under 
weigh. The bird is then difficult to shoot, especially so as it nearly always 
leaves the tree on the other side to that on which it hears a noise. There 
is therefore little, or to speak more correctly only a poor, chance of shooting 
this bird by walking through its haunts. The larger the timber too the 
greater the sound man makes in walking, so that the bird is on the alert 
long before the shooter comes within gunshot. I have killed Capercaillie 
often when walking through woods in Scotland, but do not remember 
ever to have come within shot of them by day in the large forests of Scan- 
dinavia and the Carpathians. In the latter a shooter only surprises them 
when on feed on the ground in the early morning and in the evening. 
Our friends on the Continent think us very unsportsmanlike to shoot 
the Capercaillie by driving in Scotland. We, on our part, can hardly see the 
fun of potting with a shot-gun a large bird like a Capercaillie, as it sits on 
the summit of a withered pine in the early morning. But both are wrong, 
because neither understand the finer points of the game. I have often 
enjoyed both these sports, and can only say that comparisons are odious. 
Both methods of shooting the Capercaillie are admirable sport, and can, 
in no circumstances, be compared. A man who only shoots or fishes 
has no right to say to a golfer that he cannot see the fun of hitting a ball 
into a hole, and, vice versa, the golfer might retort that murdering tame 
pheasants or standing up to your waist in icy water to catch nothing is 
not sport. Neither understands the finesse or the multifarious experience 
and skill required to ensure success, and so we must leave each sport to 
charm its particular votaries. 
Feeling that my experience of Capercaillie was incomplete without 
stalking the cocks when “ singing ” in spring, I first tried the game in Scot- 
land. One April morning I heard from the worthy keeper that two cocks 
had been located on certain trees in the Big Wood here, and that I had 
better come at once and try the methods of continental attack. In the dark 
I set out for the first “ spel ” tree, and had got to within 300 yards of it 
before I heard the old cock in full song. Extreme caution was now necessary 
— ^I had learnt that no noise must be made during the first part of the song, 
for the bird stands erect and vigilant. After waiting a few minutes I 
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