NOTES ON GROUSE-DISEASE 173 



six seasons of an artificial or extra-natural abundance, 

 with the drawback of one of bad disease. 



In corroboration of the above deductions, it may be 

 added that in Norway, where the closely allied Willow- 

 Grouse {Lagofius albus, probably the parent race) is 

 extremely abundant, grouse-disease is wholly unknown. 

 The Scandinavian grouse are nowhere more numerous 

 than in Lapland, where, according to Wheel wright, no 

 trace of disease has ever been detected. The same 

 remark, in my own experience, applies to wide tracts of 

 fell-land throughout southern and western Norway, where 

 man's disturbing influence has never been brought to 

 bear, and where the grouse are left to fight unaided 

 their own battles for existence. 



