hidden from view .by small closely-set feathers. Space above the eye naked, the
skin red with papillae, and fringed. Wings short, and rounded in form ; the fifth
quill-feather the longest. Tail of eighteen feathers. Feet with the toes naked,
three in front united as far as the first joint, and one toe behind, short, the edges
of all pectinated. Tarsi feathered to the junction of the toes.
T h e term Capercaillie, sometimes written Capercally and
Capercailzie, is of Gaelic origin, and, as usual, the best
authorities differ in their interpretation of it. Both' the
derivation and the orthography are discussed at some length
in Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown’s excellent monograph entitled
‘ The Capercaillie in Scotland r (1879), and, more tersely,
hy Professor Newton in the | Encyclopedia Britannica.’ The
balance of authority appears to be in favour of the component
words Gabhar, an old man (and by metaphor an old
bird), and Goille, a wood,; i.e, the old bird of the wood. It
has also been derived from the Celtic gobur, a horse, or-from
gabur, a goat; and, bearing in mind the extension of the
feathers on the throafof the male bird, like the beard of a
goat, and his amorous behaviour in spring, the derivation
seems not unlikely. The Scottish poet Dunbar, who died
about 1520, -uses Gaptfcalyetmc as a term of' endearment;
and Hector Boetius, in 1526, alludes-4° fhe bird as^the
Auercalz,e, or horse of tbeswoo4&,; jt is cited in the bill of
fare of the Earl of Atholl when he, ejfer-tained’ James V.. in
1528-29, and by Bishop Lesly in 1578, who was the first to
indicate a definite locality—Lochaber—as its abode. In .the
account given by John Taylor, the Water-pObt, Of his “ visit to
the Brea of Marr,” in 1618, Ca/perkellies are specified along
with “ heathcocks.and termagants,” names whieh%>e-subsequently
found in some o];d Acts .of the Scottish Parliament,
circa, 1621, and in some later record's, which, however, convey
little information. In 165P it was already scarce for
in the ‘ Black Book of Taymouth ’ a friend of the Laird of
Glenorquhy writes to him : “ I went and shew your Capercailzie
to the king in'-his bedchamfegE. who- accepted it weel
as a raretie, for he had never se'e'y anylNpf them before.”
At the time, of Pennant’s Tour in - Scotland f in 1769, ;it-was
nearly-e.xtfnct, and he-appears to have^feeWonly one example,
which was killed in the Chisholm’s country- to the west of
Inverness. It is true that Graves, writing in 1818, mentions
two males shot respectively about six years, and two years
previously, the latter by Captain Stanton, near Burrowsto-
ness ; but there is really no satisfactory account of its occurrence
from the time of Pennant until its restoration in the'
present century. The causes of its extinction had probably
been at work for a considerable time ; the principal ones
being the destruction of large tracts of pine forests by fire
to get rid of wolves, and other “ vermin” ; the wasteful-
destruction of timber, and the altered conditions thereby
produced. In Ireland, where it: certainly-existed, although
Giraldus Cambrensis, Willughby and. Bay give; little . but its
name, similar causes led to its “ extermination. Writing i®
1772, J . Rutty.. (Nat. Hist, of the County of Dublin, i.
p. 802) says, “ one was seen in the; county of Leitrim about
the year 1710 ; but .they have entirely disappeared, owing to
the destruction of our woods.” Pennant also states that
about 1760 a few were, to be found about Thomastown, in
Tipperary ; and Longfield, in his treatise on ‘ The Game
Laws ïih Ireland-,’ says that;,-tihei>“ Wild Turkeys ” of Act,
George III. must have been Capercaillies ; adding that they,
were not extinct so late as 1787.* After; careful investigation
of, the existing evidence, Professor Newton is of opinion
that the species was exterminated about the same timè in
both Scotland and Ireland ; the original British, racé becoming
wholly extinct, and no remains of it being known to exist
in any museum, f
As regards thé occurrence of the Capercaillie in England,
within the last two years Mr. James Backhouse, of York, has
discovered in the caves of the, mountain-limestone of Teesdale,
at an elevation of about 1,600; feet; numerous bones, which
have been pronounced by Professor Newton to be those, of this
species. In a letter-to the Editor, Mr. Backhouse writes as
follows : “ Among these. [bones}~is one nearly perfect Mmerm
belonging to a male bird of full size; others, less perfect, to
the female of ordinary size ; whilst others, again, are smaller
than those of the type. Prom the abundance óf thé remains
* J. A. Harvie-Brown, op. tit. p. 154. f Encyc. Brit. Ed. 9, y. p. 54.