6o THE GROUSE DISEASE chap. 



very great difficulty I succeeded, with the kind help 

 of the Editor of the Field, in getting together about 

 two dozen eggs that could be tried. I received more 

 than that from many gentlemen who responded to 

 my appeal ; but owing to the insufficient care with 

 which the eggs had been packed, and the great 

 injury they received on the long journey south, they 

 were quite unfit for experiment. 



Out of the two dozen eggs thus obtained and 

 subjected to hatching ^ only one yielded a bird, but 

 unfortunately, also, this expired a few hours after 

 appearing. I was therefore reluctantly forced to 

 abandon the attempt of carrying my experiments fur- 

 ther. But, notwithstanding the absence of this last 

 link in the chain of evidence, I think I may say that 

 there can be little doubt that the bacillus which I de- 

 scribed is the real cause of the disease, — its constant 

 and definite presence and distribution in the diseased 

 lung and liver of the grouse dead of the disease, its 

 virulence on buntings and other birds, the character of 

 the disease produced in the birds and the transmission 

 by the air from bunting to bunting, with the same 

 distribution of the microbe in the latter, prove to my 

 mind conclusively that we are dealing with a bacillus 



^ Messrs. Woodin and Aldous deserve my grateful acknowledgment 

 for having placed at my disposal their farm, near East Grinstead, 

 Surrey, for purposes of this experiment. 



