86 Grouse Disease. [Sess. 



able and important. Any one present interested in any of these, 

 will find them discussed and disposed of in my recent work on 

 sport and natural history. Setting aside all these theories as 

 most unsatisfactory, personally I cannot divest my mind of the 

 notion that the cause of this mysterious epidemic is largely 

 atmospheric, and pertains to a class of diseases in the animal 

 and vegetable world which have as yet baffled the researches of 

 the most skilled scientific investigators. May it not reasonably 

 be supposed that there is an affinity — not in the nature, but 

 in the unseen causes in which the cattle plague may origin- 

 ate ? Mark, I do not say so ; but surely the supposition is 

 admissible. I can remember a number of beautiful cows, 

 belonging to my friend and neighbour, Mr Jack, of Liberton, 

 which I often admired as they grazed in an adjoining park. 

 After having one evening had them shut up in his byres, he 

 retired to rest, but on the following morning he discovered that 

 during the night the place had been visited by a destroying 

 angel, and in little more than a week thirty-four out of thirty- 

 five cows succumbed to the insidious malady. Similar attacks 

 have manifested themselves in the vegetable world. Those of 

 you who have lived in the country must have seen and admired 

 the growth of a field of potatoes, few things being more beauti- 

 ful when in full bloom. Everything indicates an excellent 

 crop, and the farmer's prospects look bright. Without warn- 

 ing, however, " like a thief in the night," a mysterious agent 

 visits the field, and in the morning it is discovered that the 

 entire crop has been smitten with disease, leaving them black- 

 ened, and with an odour which is most offensive. Here, I ask, 

 if the originating forces — spores, germs, or call them what you 

 will — are not present in the atmosphere, where are they ? Mr 

 Jack, just referred to, informed me that both his father and his 

 father-in-law were victims to cholera at Cambuslang about 

 thirty years ago, and that the development of the disease was 

 striking in its resemblance to that which proved so fatal among 

 his cows. 



As already indicated, I have given considerable attention to 

 the subject in hand, and have, in conjunction with competent 

 professional authorities, dissected scores of grouse, old as well 

 as young, in all stages of this fatal epidemic. Since the present 

 outbreak of the malady, I have had specimens sent me from 



