erly indigenous to
Scotland and Ireland. The word is frequently spelt otherwise, as
capercalze, capercailzie (the z, a letter unknown in Gaelic, being
pronounced like y), and capercaillie, and the English name of
wood-grouse or cock-of-the-wood has been often applied to the same bird.
The earliest notice of it as an inhabitant of North Britain seems to be
by Hector Boethius, whose works were published in 1526, and it can then
be traced through various Scottish writers, to whom, however, it was
evidently but little known, for about 200 years, or may be more, and by
one of them only, Bishop Lesley, in 1578, was a definite _habitat_
assigned to it:--"In Rossia quoque Louguhabria [Lochaber], atque aliis
montanis locis" (_De Origine Moribus et rebus gestis Scotorum_. Romae:
ed. 1675, p. 24). Pennant, during one of his tours in Scotland, found
that it was then (1769) still to be met with in Glen Moriston and in The
Chisholm's country, whence he saw a cock-bird. We may infer that it
became extinct about that time, since Robert Gray (_Birds of the West of
Scotland_, p. 229) quotes the Rev. John Grant as writing in 1794: "The
last seen in Scotland was in the woods of Strathglass about thirty-two
years ago." Of its existence in Ireland we have scarcely more details.
If we may credit the _Pavones sylvestres_ of Giraldus Cambrensis with
being of this species, it was once abundant there, and Willughby (1678)
was told that it was known in that kingdom as the "cock-of-the-wood." A
few other writers mention it by the same name, and John Rutty, in 1772,
says (_Nat. Hist. Dublin_, i.p. 302) that "one was seen in the county of
Leitrim about the year 1710, but they have entirely disappeared of late,
by reason of the destruction of our woods." Pennant also states that
about 1760 a few were to be found about Thomastown in Tipperary, but no
later evidence is forthcoming, and thus it would seem that the species
was exterminated at nearly the same period in both Ireland and Scotland.

When the practice of planting was introduced, the restoration of this
fine bird to both countries was attempted. In Ireland the trial, of
which some particulars are given by J. Vaughan Thompson (_Birds of
Ireland_, ii. 32), was made at Glengariff, but it seems to have utterly
failed, whereas in Scotland, where it was begun at Taymouth, it finally
succeeded, and the species is now not only firmly established, but is
increasing in numbers and range. Mr L. Lloyd, the