(T. As.)
[1] Some writers wrongly speak as though the two hills were identical.
CAPER, FLAVIUS, Latin grammarian, flourished during the and century. He devoted special attention to the early Latin writers, and is highly spoken of by Priscian. Caper was the author of two works—De Lingua Latina and De Dubiis Generibus. These works in their original form are lost; but two short treatises entitled De Orthographia and De Verbis Dubiis have come down to us under his name, probably excerpts from the original works, with later additions by an unknown writer.
See F. Osann, De Flavio Capro (1849), and review by W. Christ in Philologus, xviii. 165-170 (1862), where several editions of other important grammarians are noticed; G. Keil, “De Flavio Grammatico,” in Dissertationes Halenses, x. (1889); text in H. Keil’s Grammatici Latini, vii.
CAPERCALLY, or Caperkally,[1] a bird’s name commonly derived from the Gaelic capull, a horse (or, more properly, a mare), and coille, a wood, but with greater likelihood, according to the opinion of Dr M‘Lauchlan, from cabher, an old man (and, by metaphor, an old bird), and coille, the name of Tetrao urogallus, the largest of the grouse family (Tetraonidae), and a species which was formerly 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 author of several excellent works on the wild sports and natural history of Scandinavia, supplied the stock from Sweden, but it must be always borne in mind that the original British race was wholly extinct, and no remains of it are known to exist in any museum.
This species is widely, though intermittently, distributed on the continent of Europe, from Lapland to the northern parts of Spain, Italy and Greece, but is always restricted to pine-forests, which alone afford it food in winter. Its bones have been found in the kitchen-middens of Denmark, proving that country to have once been clothed with woods of that kind. Its remains have also been recognized from the caves of Aquitaine. Its eastern or southern limits in Asia cannot be precisely given, but it certainly inhabits the forests of a great part of Siberia. On the Stannovoi Mountains, however, it is replaced by a distinct though nearly allied species, the T. urogalloides of Dr von Middendorff,[2] which is smaller with a slenderer bill but longer tail.