GROUSE DISEASE 581 



the bacilli exist in great numbers, there is little doubt that 

 toxins would be produced which would have a very deleterious 

 effect on the health of the bird. 



But let us leave the bacteria and get back to the round- 

 worms. How do they get into the grouse ? Between 95 and 

 100 per cent, of birds on different moors contain these worms. 

 There may be as many as 10,000 in round numbers in one 

 grouse, about equally divided between the two caeca. Each 

 female worm lays hundreds of eggs, which are constantly 

 passing out of the bird's body and lie scattered all over 

 Scotland. These eggs give rise to larvae in about two days, 

 the larvae surround themselves about the eighth day with a 

 capsule or cyst and undergo " a rest cure." After a period of 

 quiescence they quickly change into a second and active larval 

 form, which in wet weather — a not unusual atmospheric con- 

 dition in Northern Britain — writhe and wriggle and creep and 

 crawl until they attain the stem and the leaves and the flowers 

 of the heather. Here these larvae wait patiently until a grouse 

 consumes them with the heather tips and then, once inside the 

 alimentary canal, they become adult, make their way to the caeca 

 and in four days ripe eggs are again infesting the moors. 



It is recorded that Prince Bismarck once said to Lady 

 Randolph Churchill, " Have you ever sat on the grass and 

 examined it closely ? There is enough life in one square yard 

 to appal you." 



It has always seemed to me a strange thing for the Prince 

 to have said. To begin with, throughout his long life he had 

 shown but an imperfect sympathy with the lower Invertebrata, 

 and then, again, he was a man not easily appalled : but the 

 saying is perfectly true. It is difficult for the layman to grasp 

 what is going on in and on the soil and on the plants which 

 it supports. Suppose we could by means of a gigantic lens 

 magnify a square yard of a grouse moor one hundred times. 

 The heather plants would be as tall as lofty elms, their flowers 

 as big as cabbages, the grouse would be about six or seven 

 times the size of " Chantecler " at the Porte St. Martin. 



Creeping and wriggling up the stem and over the leaves and 

 gradually yet surely making their way towards the flowers 

 would be seen hundreds and thousands of silvery-white worms 

 about the size of young earth-worms. Lying on the leaves and 

 on the plant generally would be seen thousands of spherical 



