110 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



Flint grit may serve for Pheasants, but it does not fracture 

 into serviceable shapes for Grouse. Sharp points and cutting 

 edges are not wanted, but sub-angular and roughly rounded 

 pebbles of small size for the breaking up and pulping of the 

 comparatively hard foliage of Calluna. 



In another part of this Report it is suggested that when 

 quartz is scarce it might be artificially introduced with a view 

 to the welfare of the stock. This expedient has met with some 

 success, but has not been very extensively adopted. The 

 artificial introduction of quartz grit has frequently been tried 

 with Pheasants, and always with success. In the Committee's 

 collection there are several specimens of gizzards from Pheasants 

 shot on estates both before and after the introduction of quartz, 

 and in every instance it can be seen that the quartz is preferred 

 to the natural grit found on the estate. 



Observations have been made with a view to finding out 

 how long quartz or other hard grits normally remain in the 

 gizzard of a Grouse, and it has now been proved by experiment 

 that if none are supplied to make good the normal and presum- 

 ably accidental loss, the bird whose gizzard may on the first 

 day have allowed about a hundred grits to pass, becomes 

 exceedingly careful on the second and third day, and allows no 

 such loss to occur again. In a case in which no grits were 

 supplied to a Grouse at all, and in which the Grits passed in 

 the droppings were carefully washed out and collected every 

 day for twenty-one days, the greatest daily loss after the second 

 day never exceeded thirteen small pieces, even though a 

 hundred and sixty pieces had been passed on the first day, and 

 twenty-seven pieces on the second. This bird died unexpectedly 

 on the twenty-first day, and upon dissection the gizzard was 

 found to contain still no less than half of the original contents, 

 all of which had been in the gizzard for at least three weeks. 

 That this apparent control of the gizzard over the loss of grits was 

 not merely accidental was proved by the occurrence of a precisely 

 similar series of losses day by day in another bird ; but when 

 its companion died, apparently as the result of losing half 



