favourite with
sportsmen--is now generally separated generically from the Black Grouse,
though they are of course near relations. Its range greatly resembles
that of the Black Grouse, except that it does not go quite as far east
in Siberia, not having been met with beyond Lake Baikal. From there it
is found westward as far as the Pyrenees. It occurs also in the
Carpathians and the Alps. In England, where it used to be known by the
name Cock of the Wood, it became extinct at some remote period in
history, while it lingered on in Scotland and Ireland until the end of
the last century. In Scotland it has been reintroduced into several
counties, and being protected, it appears to spread from these
artificial centres of distribution.

Like the Black Cock, the Capercaillie is a Siberian migrant, and it is
one of the few Siberian species which have reached Ireland, as I have
had occasion to mention in dealing with the origin of the British fauna.
Two other species of Capercaillie and an allied genus (_Falcipennis_)
are met with in the extreme north-east of Siberia, and six other genera,
all belonging to the grouse family, are confined to North America. We
have therefore a very intimate relationship between the grouse of Asia
and those of North America, some species even ranging right across the
two continents.

The last genus of this very interesting family is _Tetrastes_. This
grouse is not familiar to British ornithologists, since it is entirely
absent from the British Islands. But sportsmen who have tramped over
Scandinavia know it well by the name of Hazel Grouse. It is ashy grey in
colour, barred and vermiculated with black. The Common Hazel Grouse
(_Tetrastes bonasia_) is found from Northern Spain in the west right
through the mountainous parts of Central and Northern Europe and
Northern Asia to Kamtchatka and the Russian convict island of Saghalien
in the Pacific. Besides the Common Hazel Grouse, two other species are
known, one from Eastern Russia and the other from China.

Having now shortly reviewed the whole grouse family, we have seen that,
although some species live within the Polar Circle, the majority are
more or less confined to the more temperate or rather the less arctic
parts of the Northern Hemisphere. They are quite absent from Southern
Asia and even the southern parts of North America, and almost so from
the Mediterranean basin. The whole range of the family is therefore
suggestive of a northern origin