RED GROUSE. 521 



weight in the Wensleydale district is about twenty-four 

 ounces for cocks and twenty ounces for hens. 



The dreaded Grouse disease has at times greatly reduced 

 the stock of birds on some moors, but it does not appear to 

 have attracted any attention until the year 1847, although 

 the remarks made by Tunstall, previously quoted, as to the 

 great decrease of the birds in his time, would lead one to infer 

 that it was then prevalent. For a long period after 1847 

 the outbreaks of the disease were sporadic, occurring every 

 seven years, but this may have been merely a coincidence, 

 yet many keepers still believe that a recurrence will take 

 place at these periods. Dr. Klein made a thorough investiga- 

 tion into the causes of the epidemic, but it is problematical 

 if the true reasons have as yet been ascertained. Over- 

 stocking, with the consequent scarcity of food, stagnant 

 water, and the attendant indigestible character of the food 

 when the young shoots of heather are nipped by late spring 

 frosts, are all prejudicial to a healthy stock. Various theories 

 have been from time to time advanced by close observers, 

 men who have spent all their time in a moorland district, 

 and one of these, the late Dr. Cockroft of Middleham, was 

 strongly of opinion that the epidemic resembled most closely 

 typhoid fever in the human subject, and there is great reason 

 to believe that his diagnosis was correct.* 



There is an Act still in force for regulating the seasons 

 when heather shall be burnt, but its provisions are not strictly 

 enforced in Yorkshire. In past times heather burning, 

 except during the legal periods, was looked upon as a serious 

 offence, and in the " Charge to the Jury," found in the old 

 minute book of Harmby township, in the North Riding, 

 dated in 1825, the following statement occurs under the 

 head of " Ling " : 



" And if any person shall burn any Ling, Heath, Furze, &c., 

 between the 22nd February and the 24th June (old style) 

 he shall be sent to the House of Correction for any time not 

 exceeding a month, there to be whipt and kept to hard labour." 



* cf. J. E. Harting on " Grouse Disease," Field, 25th June 1904. 



