136 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



recognised, and the best method of avoiding it is dealt with 

 elsewhere. 1 



Accidental poisoning is a rare cause of death in Grouse. 

 A few cases have been brought before the Committee as cases 

 of " Grouse Disease." It is not easy to guess how poisoning 

 occurs, for poison used in killing vermin is administered mainly 

 in eggs, and in the carcasses of fur-bearing animals, neither 

 of which are likely to be tampered with by Grouse. Poisonous 

 sheep -dip has been blamed in some cases ; but it is difficult to 

 believe that it can be more than the rarest cause of accident. 



The theory that many Grouse are poisoned by lead pellets, 

 whether swallowed as such, or in solution as carbonate of lead 

 in drinking water, has been ingeniously upheld by an elaborate 

 calculation of the amount of shot scattered over a moor in a 

 shooting season ; but though the crops and gizzards of Grouse 

 do occasionally contain a lead pellet or two, they are sufficiently 

 uncommon to be a matter of curiosity to the finder rather than 

 a cause of sickness to the birds. 2 



The following is an account of what was supposed to be 

 accidental poisoning of Grouse by sulphate of Barium. It is 

 given by Macpherson in the " Fauna of Lakeland." 3 Quoting 

 John Borrow as writing from Alston in 1837, he says : "In 

 consequence of the Grouse in some parts of this neighbourhood 

 having been unable to procure sand (owing to the depth of snow), 

 they have picked up particles of the sulphate of Barites, which 

 appears to have been the cause of a very great mortality among 

 them. A person whom I can depend on assures me he saw 

 not less than forty brace dead upon the moors a few days 

 since." 



One may, I think, legitimately wonder whether this mortality 

 was not due rather to grit - starvation, accompanying and 

 augmenting the evils of food starvation, which is always 

 present to some extent with deep snow. 



1 Vide chap. i. p. 17, and chap. xii. p. 369. 



2 Vide Macdonald, "Grouse Disease," p. 160. 



3 Vide Reverend H. A. Macpheraon, "A Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland," p. 323. 

 Edinburgh : D. Douglas, 1892. 



