CAPERCAILLIE. 187 
caught in traps, and also are watched for by gunners, who 
lie in wait for them all night, and in the morning steal a 
march upon them while engaged in singing, as their noise 
is also called, pausing when they cease, and drawing nearer 
again when they re-commence. These birds are generally 
found in packs at the beginning and during the continuance 
of winter, dispersing again with the return of spring. The 
packs are said to consist sometimes of as many as fifty or 
a hundred birds, and to frequent the sides of the lakes and 
morasses which abound in the northern forests. 
Their flight is said to be not particularly heavy or noisy, 
considering their size, and they can take a flight of several 
miles at a time. The wings are clapped very quickly together. 
In walking the body is carried in a horizontal position, the 
tail drooped, and the head stretched out. If need be they 
can run fast. 
These birds feed on grain, juniper berries, cranberries, 
_blaeberries, and other berries, and the leaves of small shrubs, 
the buds of the birch and other trees, and insects, and also, 
but probably only in winter and the early months, the males 
it is said, the most so, on the leaves of the fir, which 
impart a perceptible flavour to them: they drink frequently. 
The young are at first fed with ants, worms, and insects. 
The play of the Capereaillie, for so is his note called, is 
harsh and grating, and is said to resemble the syllables 
‘peller, peller, peller.’ It is made from the first dawn of day 
to sunrise, and. from a little after sunset till it is quite dark; 
but it is dependant on the state of the season. While 
playing, his neck is stretched out, the tail raised and spread, 
the wings drooped, and the feathers ruffled out, and he seems 
absorbed in his thoughts, and may be more easily approached 
than at other times. “These sounds he repeats at first at 
some little intervals, but,as he proceeds they increase in 
rapidity, until at last, and after perhaps the lapse of a 
minute or so, he makes a sort of a gulp in his throat, and 
finishes by drawing in his breath. During the continuance 
of this latter process, which only lasts a few seconds, the 
head of the Capercaillie is thrown up, his eyes are partially 
closed, and his whole appearance would denote that he is 
worked up into an agony of passion.’ ‘The voice of the female 
resembles the sound ‘gock, gock, gock,’—a call to her mate 
and to the young. Old birds will not permit the young, 
even of the second year, to play. If, however, the old birds 
