THE RED GROUSE. 79 



their natural enemies, Red Grouse had enormously increased 

 prior to the time when the Grouse-disease shewed itself, and 

 made terrible ravages on some of the moors which had pre- 

 viously been amongst the best stocked. It has been ascribed 

 to various causes, most of which have in all probability had 

 a share in contributing to its development, and each of 

 which, to the exclusion of all others, has found its violent 

 partisans. The immediate cause in specimens examined by 

 Dr. Spencer Cobbold would seem to have been the presence in 

 extraordinary numbers of two sets of entozoic parasites, both 

 flat and round, the existence of which in small numbers may 

 be compatible with health, whilst emaciation and death result 

 from their supremacy. Bad weather, and the nipping of the 

 young shoots of the heather by a late frost, or its injudicious 

 burning, also tend to weaken the systems of the birds.* 



It is not desirable to enter into details respecting Grouse- 

 shooting, but as the number of this species bagged in a 

 single day exceeds that of any other game-bird, a few facts 

 may be given. The largest bag on record was made by 

 Lord Walsingham at Blubberhouses in Yorkshire, on the 

 28th August, 1872, when he killed 842 Grouse in one day 

 to his own gun, and under somewhat unfavourable circum- 

 stances. In the same year, on the Wemmergill Moors, in 

 the North Riding of Yorkshire, Mr. F. A. Milbank, M.P., 

 in six days, and with an average of six companions, killed 

 3,983 1 brace, or nearly 8,000 birds. The largest bag over 

 dogs was made by the Maharajah Duleep Singh at Grand- 

 tuUy, Perthshire, on the 12th August, 1871, when 220 

 brace of fairly-grown Grouse and no " cheepers " were shot ; 

 and on the 14th, 110 brace of Grouse over one brace of dogs 

 in six hours. f 



A male bird of the year, killed in December, had the 

 beak black ; the irides hazel, with a crescentic patch of 

 vermilion red skin over the eye, fringed at its upper free 

 edge ; head and neck reddish-brown, but more rufous than 

 any other part of the bird ; back, wing, and tail-coverts, 

 chestnut-brown, barred transversely and speckled with 



* Cf. Harvie-Brown, Zool. 1882, p. 401. f Rural Almanac, 1881, p. 21. 



