CAUSES OF MORTALITY IN THE RED GROUSE 135 



Many interesting cases have also been recorded of recovery 

 from flesh wounds, either by shot or by barbed wire, and the 

 following have come under the notice of the Inquiry: 



One case represented a long standing leakage of the crop, 

 due to a wound through the skin and crop-wall. Owing to 

 constant use of the crop, and to the alternate distention and 

 contraction of the overlying skin, the adhesions between the 

 edges of the skin and crop -wall had become permanent before 

 there was any chance of the openings in either being closed. 

 Bits of heather pressed constantly between the lips of the wound 

 had prevented healing, and had defeated the efforts made by 

 the crop to pass all the food into the gizzard. The bird had 

 therefore to eat more than the normal amount to make good 

 a chronic wastage, and this accounts for the very abnormal 

 distention of the crop which often characterises cases of the 

 kind. Such cases may have resulted from shot wounds, or 

 from rents made by barbed wire. The latter is probably the 

 cause in the majority of cases. 



It is fairly common to find shot pellets loose among the 

 contents of the crop or in the gizzard. They have sometimes 

 been lodged there when the bird was killed, but have more 

 commonly been picked up and swallowed as grit, or out of 

 simple curiosity. In one case a shot pellet was actually encysted 

 in the thin wall of the crop. It would have found its way 

 eventually into the crop without any damage ; but it is curious 

 that a pellet having entered the bird with sufficient impetus 

 to get through the skin and half way through the wall of the 

 crop should not have gone right through into the contents. 



The danger to young chicks in sheep drains and in moss Danger of 

 cuttings for " peats," or for general surface draining, has already drains, 

 been mentioned. It is greatest during a " spate " after a 

 spell of dry, hot weather in June or July, when young broods 

 have been led by their parents to take shelter from the sun 

 in dry drains with steep sides. The sudden filling of these 

 drains is responsible for the loss of many chicks before they 

 find a place to scramble up into safety. This danger is well 



