CAUSES OF MORTALITY IN THE RED GROUSE 169 



or from rents made by barbed wire. The latter is probably the cause in 

 the majority of cases. 



It is fairly common to find shot pellets loose among the contents of 

 the crop or in the gizzard. They have sometimes been lodged there when 

 the bird was killed, but have more commonly been picked up and g^ot fve- 

 swallowed as grit, or out of simple curiosity. In one case a shot pellet found m 

 was actually encysted in the thin wall of the crop. It would have °™P' 

 found its way eventually into the crop without any damage ; but it is at least 

 curious that a pellet having entered the bird with sufficient impetus to get 

 through the skin and half way through the wall of the crop should not have 

 gone right through into the contents. 



No. 1150 is a similar case resulting from a shot wound ; the pellet had 

 entered the body of the bird, and having perforated two portions of the gut 

 had then lodged in the gizzard. Localised peritonitis had followed, causing 

 abundant adhesions, and a short cut had been established between the gizzard 

 and the main intestine as well as another from the upper portion of the main 

 intestine to a lower portion of the same. 



The danger to young chicks in sheep drains and in moss cuttings for " peats," 

 or for general surface draining, has already been mentioned. It is greatest 

 during a " spate " after a spell of dry, hot weather in June or July, 

 when young broods have been led by their parents to take shelter sheei? 

 from the sun in dry drains cut with steep sides. The sudden filling 

 of these drains is responsible for the loss of many chicks before they find 

 a place to scramble up into safety. This danger is well recognised, and the 

 best method of avoiding it is dealt with in another chapter.^ 



Accidental poisoning is a rare cause of death in Grouse. A few cases have 

 been brought before the Committee as cases of " Grouse Disease." It is not 

 easy to guess how poisoning occurs, for poison used in killing vermin Accidental 

 is administered mainly in eggs, and in the carcasses of fur-bearing po'so'^i'^g- 

 animals, neither of which are likely to be tampered with by Grouse. Poisonous 

 sheep dip has been blamed in some cases ; but it is difficult to believe that it 

 can be more than the rarest cause of accident. 



The theory that many Grouse are poisoned by lead pellets, whether swallowed 

 as such, or in solution as carbonate of lead in drinking water has been ingeniously 

 upheld by an elaborate calculation of the amount of shot scattered over a moor 



' Vide chap. ii. p. 15. 



