Holland, who took possession of the river in 1623, and planted the short-lived colony of Fort Nassau 4 m. below Philadelphia, near the present Gloucester City, N.J. Cape May was settled about 1699,—a previous attempt to settle here made by Samuel Blommaert in 1631 was unsuccessful. It was an important whaling port early in the 18th century, and became prominent as a watering-place late in that century. It was incorporated as the borough of Cape Island in 1848, and chartered as the city of Cape Island in 1851; in 1869 the name was changed to Cape May.
CAPENA, an ancient city of southern Etruria, frequently mentioned with Veii and Falerii. Its exact site is, however, uncertain. According to Cato it was a colony of the former, and in the wars between Veii and Rome it appears as dependent upon Veii, after the fall of which town, however, it became subject to Rome. Out of its territory the tribus Stellatina was formed in 367 B.C. In later republican times the city itself is hardly mentioned, but under the empire a municipium Capenatium foederatum is frequently mentioned in inscriptions. Of these several were found upon the hill known as Civitucola, about 4 m. north-east of the post station of ad Vicesimum on the ancient Via Flaminia, a site which is well adapted for an ancient city. It lies on the north side of a dried-up lake, once no doubt a volcanic crater. Remains of buildings of the Roman period also exist there, while, in the sides of the hill of S. Martino which lies on the north-east,[1] rock-cut tombs belonging to the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. but used in Roman times for fresh burials, were excavated in 1859–1864, and again in 1904. Inscriptions in early Latin and in local dialect were also found (W. Henzen, Bullettino dell’ Istituto, 1864, 143; R. Paribeni, Notizie degli Scavi, 1905, 301). Similar tombs have also been found on the hills south of Civitucola. G.B. de Rossi, however, supposed that the games of which records (fragments of the fasti ludorum) were also discovered at Civitucola, were those which were celebrated from time immemorial at the Lucus Feroniae, with which he therefore proposed to identify this site, placing Capena itself at S. Oreste, on the south-eastern side of Mount Soracte. But there are difficulties in the way of this assumption, and it is more probable that the Lucus Feroniae is to be sought at or near Nazzano, where, in the excavation of a circular building which some conjecture to have been the actual temple of Feronia, inscriptions relating to a municipality were found. Others, however, propose to place Lucus Feroniae at the church of S. Abbondio, 1 m. east of Rignano and 4 m. north-north-west of Civitucola, which is built out of ancient materials. On the Via Flaminia, 26 m. from Rome, near Rignano, is the Christian cemetery of Theodora.
See R. Lanciani, Bullettino dell’ Istituto, 1870, 32; G. B. de Rossi, Annali dell’ Istituto, 1883, 254; Bullettino Cristiano, 1883, 115; G. Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London, 1883), i. 131; E. Bormann, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1888), xi. 571; H. Nissen, Italische Landeskunde (Berlin, 1902), ii. 369; R. Paribeni, in Monumenti dei Lincei, xvi. (1906), 277 seq.
(T. As.)
CAPER, FLAVIUS, Latin grammarian, flourished during the 2nd 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,[2] 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,[3] which is smaller with a slenderer bill but longer tail.
The cock-of-the-wood is remarkable for his large size and dark plumage, with the breast metallic green. He is polygamous, and in spring mounts to the topmost bough of a tall tree, whence he challenges all comers by extraordinary sounds and gestures; while the hens, which are much smaller and mottled in colour, timidly abide below the result of the frequent duels, patiently submitting themselves to the victor. While this is going on it is the practice in many countries, though generally in defiance
- ↑ Some writers wrongly speak as though the two hills were identical.
- ↑ This is the spelling of the old law-books, as given by Pennant, the zoologist, who, on something more than mere report, first included this bird among the British fauna. The only one of the “Scots Acts,” however, in which the present writer has been able to ascertain that the bird is named is No. 30 of James VI. (1621), which was passed to protect “powties, partrikes, moore foulles, blakcoks, gray hennis, termigantis, quailzies, capercailzies,” &c.
- ↑ Not to be confounded with the bird so named previously by Prof. Nilsson, which is a hybrid.
