in his Appendix, page 626,-r—a Capercali cock . that frequented
a wood, a m%ei distant from Renthendörf, in which
was a path or roadway:. This bird, as soon às itapejfceived
any person approach, would fly-to wards him, peck at his . legs,:
and rap him with ii&f wings, said -wasa^ith ‘ difficult,driven
away. A huntsman succeeded in taking this .bird,':, and
earned it to a place about fourteen 'English milés ' distant ;
but on the following day thé’ Capercali resumed hisriisual
haunt. Another person afterwards<haught him, with a view
of carrying him to the Ofwer Jagmastàre. ' A t first thèhhjd
remained, quiet ; but helsoon began to tear and peck at the
man so ; effectually, that >iher latter was compelled to restore
him to kisdiberty.’ However,' after a few months he totally
disappeared, having probably fallen- into the • hands of- a 'less
timid bird-catcher.” ?
Mr. Lloyd; says,dS The Capercali occasionally breed! with
the Black .Grouse, and the produce are in Sweden called
JRâcklehanen ^these partake of- the leading* characters- of both
species, but their size and colour greatly depend-üpon whf^.
thër they havelaeeiri produced betwéén.’the Capercali. .cock
and'thé Grfey hen, - or .meet versât Femalesjaf these’ hybrids
appear to "he much more?rare than males';* but neither sex^
according to Mr. Lloydi are common : he had,’ hbweve^fhistn-
self shot ?one;riâôd his p o rtin g friénd; Mr. : F a|k,r had shot
two.g Amongthe quantities of Capercaillie which arereeeived
every season in ithe LOndoh; market^" afidi are said to comb
from Norway, dhe male birds . of this hybrid are occasionally
•to h e found. ’ Within th e last ten years X hâve certainlyjèóe’n
as many às seven specimens.'at: the shop of oné poulterer, four
of which were in beautiful plumage, and were purchased by
Mr. ’ Léadbeater, Mr. Gould, or ••others., to préserve’ fbï. collections.
~ This .hybrid- appears to ber-wélLfknown in those
countriés which are inhabited, by the Black Grcrosë as well
as the Capercaillie, and has been named by various authors
Tetrdo.medfyts, Tetraà. Jiybridus■, and Urogallus hybridus ;
some considering:the* bird a distinct species, and others only
a hybrid. ' v®hWe ,is ' everi»reason to believe that it formerly
existed in- Scotland,’ contemporary with the Capercaillie. Mr.
,G. T. Fox, in his Synopsis of the contents of the Newcastle
Museum, published in 1827, quotes the Tunstall MS. at
page 78, in the following words.: “ I know some old Scotch
who say .they'remember when young there were
*4© Scotland both the Cock of hK^e: Wood,, as also the Hybri-
y3èi^^%,;and^|^ page 245 Mr. Fox : has- given: a figure of this
|îâ^tmamedlbitd|f from a specimen dh the Newcastle Museum,
whjch was~éngraVedls:on Copper ,|p | Robert Bewick from a
drawing rn^de by hid father, Thoihas Bewick. The bird has
since sheen. figured by- Grèuld, Werner, and others. The
digum of the bird given on thëmèxt page was taken from a
coloured representation illustrating the F auna of Scandinavia
ply M. Niltlfn;.'
A ^ J iitifu l specimen" of this bird, exhibited by Mr. Gould
ah the Zoological ^oejpty^in'* the spring of 1881, was thus
briefly describedf in comparison with the'Capercaillie, in the
Proceedings of the Society for that year, "at page 78. . “ In
the Tetâao 'medîïis the beak is black ; the shining feathers on
the front'of-the neck are of a rich orleans-plum colour; and
of thel eighteent feathers of thés tail the outer ones are the
longest. In the Cock of the Wood the beak rs white ; the
feathers on the' front of the breast are of a dark glossy green ;
and tkfî-eeiître féathèrs of the tail are the longest.” There is
a fine'specimen in -the collection at the British Museum.
Females of this hybrid, as I have before mentioned, appear
to be much more rare than the males. Two examples are
said to be preserved in the Royal Museum at Stockholm,
and one in the Muséum at Geneva, which M. Neçker, in his
Memoir on the Birds of Geneva, says, was obtained from the
pine forests of Mount Jura in winter ; there is also in the