28 GMIE PEESERVEES AND BIED PEESEEVEES. 



week, and in a country where they are rather 

 larger than usual and disease is unknown. 



It would be as reasonable in our opinion to 

 fire a mitraiJleuse down PiccadiUy once a week 

 with the idea of improving the stamina of the 

 London population by destroying sickly chil- 

 dren and incurable invahds as to allow the 

 falcon to breed with the idea that he will kill 

 the sickly grouse only. And the simile holds 

 good still further, for as these sickly people 

 would be likely to be confined to their houses 

 and thus to escape the murderous discharge, 

 so the sickly grouse, where they exist, are 

 cowering in the taU heather afraid to face the 

 open, and are the last birds that will ever rise 

 before a falcon. 



But Mr. E. Gray argues that immense 

 numbers of grouse are every season wounded 

 and drag on a miserable ez^stence, but that they 

 all actually breed next year unless destroyed 

 by birds of prey, and rear a sickly brood ; and 

 that this is the cause of the so-called grouse 



