xviii INTRODUCTION 



Considering aJl these circumstances, the results now published do not seem 

 unduly belated. 



The Committee specially desire to record their thanks to the following gentle- 

 men who have formed the Scientific Staff of the Inquiry, and to wliose labours the 

 results are due : — 



Edward A. Wilson, M.B., F.Z.B., M.B.O.U., was appointed, in November 1905, 

 principal Field Observer, Anatomist and Physiologist to the Inquiry, and devoted 

 his whole time to the work till the autumn of 1910, when he joined Captain 

 Scott's Antarctic Expedition as Scientific Director on the Terra Nova. It is 

 difficult to speak highly enough of Dr. Wilson's services, for not only was he 

 an indefatigable worker in the field, but his ornithological knowledge, his 

 scientific training, and his artistic skill, have been of the utmost value in 

 every branch of the Inquiry. Practically every Grouse which was submitted 

 to the Committee for examination was dissected and reported on by Dr Wilson, 

 and the results of these dissections, as shown in Appendix D, not only form a record 

 of long and patient labour, but also provide an enormous mass of carefully 

 arranged material which has been of great use to the Committee. Dr Wilson 

 has written or aided in writing ten out of the first fourteen (Chapters of the 

 Book, and has not only fully illustrated his own contributions, but has placed his 

 artistic skill at the disposal of nearly all the other writers. In addition to his 

 services as Field Observer and Physiologist, Dr Wilson conducted a series of 

 experiments on live Grouse at the Committee's Observation Area whereby the 

 results obtained by Dr Leiper, Dr Shipley and others were put to the test ; 

 these experiments entailed some years of hard and patient work, and required 

 the closest co-operation with the other members of the Scientific Staff. Dr 

 Wilson's personal qualities secured for him the willing assistance alike of Local 

 Correspondents and Scientific Staff, and went far to ensure whatever success the 

 Committee has achieved. 



A. E. Shipley, M.A., Hon. D.Sc, F.R.S., Master of Christ's College, Cam- 

 bridge, and Reader in Zoology in the University of Cambridge, undertook 

 in June 1905 to assist the Committee in the Scientific Depai'tments of tlieir 

 research, especially in connection with the investigations of the ectoparasites and 

 endoparasites of Grouse. Dr Shipley's services to the scientific side of the Inquiry 

 have been as important as Dr Wilson's services to the natural history side. Dr 



