12 
me; this I consider very remarkable: we do occasionally get a 
specimen in very hard winters ; but for seven of these powerful birds 
to be driven dead upon our shores shows the severity of the storm.” 
Mr. Stephen Clogg, writing from Looe two days later (February 20), 
says, “The south-eastern shores of Cornwall have been covered with 
the dead bodies of various birds during the present month. In a 
walk of about a mile I numbered no less than sixty-nine dead bodies 
of Razorbills, in various stages of decay. This state of things ex- 
tends for upwards of ten miles; and when we consider the great 
numbers that have been carried away for the purpose of making 
plumes for ladies’ hats, and others that did not come ashore, I think 
we may safely conclude that thousands of the above-named species 
of birds have perished in this immediate neighbourhood within a 
fortnight; and if such has been the case in other parts of England 
how vast must have been the mortality amongst them!” 
To the above instances Mr. Newman, the indefatigable editor of 
the ‘ Zoologist,’ adds in a note, “This morning (February 21st) I 
met a man going over London Bridge with a clothes-basket full or 
Razorbills: he could not, or would not, tell me how he came by 
them ; but by the blood on the plumage, I think they had come by a 
violent death.” 
Lastly disease, the greatest of all misfortunes, plays its sad part 
among birds as well as among quadrupeds and man. Grouse, 
as we all know, are frequently visited with great severity, and the 
sweeping hand of death is not satisfied until all but a remnant have 
succumbed to its ravages. Nature, in her wisdom, may cause all 
these various modes of destruction to take effect for some good end, 
—to check, perhaps, an inordinate increase of a particular species : 
quite certain it is that she never intended that five thousand Grouse 
should be bred on a Lancashire moor, or that a thousand Blue 
Hares should inhabit the crown of a single Scottish hill, as is often 
the case. 
This unnatural over-crowding of the Grouse and Hares may have 
arisen in the case of the former from the extreme care and attention 
bestowed upon them, and, as regards the latter, from the killing 
down of the Golden Eagles and Foxes, of whose food the Blue Hare 
constitutes a large proportion, and upon the undue increase of which 
they were doubtless intended to afford a wholesome check. 
“The jealous care,” says Mr. Robert Gray, in his ‘ Birds of Western 
Scotland,’ “‘ with which this beautiful bird is protected appears of 
late years to have affected the wellbeing of the species; ” and “I 
cannot withold expressing a fear that the Red Grouse of Scotland, 
if not soon left to its own resources, may ultimately become a victim 
to overprotection. The great changes that have taken place within 
the last thirty years in the management of moorland tracts, and the 
excessive rents now derived from such properties, induced both land- 
owners and lessees to clear the ground of all kinds of animals that 
would prey upon those birds which are not strong enough to protect 
themselves ; hence sickly broods of Grouse perpetuate other broods, 
that year by year degenerate, until disease ensues, and in some 
