146 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



there because they are sick not that they become sick 

 because they have been upon the corn. St John notes that 

 on August 12th, 1847, during a severe epidemic of disease 

 in Morayshire, Grouse were feeding in numbers on unfilled 

 green oats in the small fields near the moor. This, he says, 

 he had never seen before, though he was accustomed to see 

 Grouse flocking to the stubbles in the autumn. 1 



Sickly birds found feeding on the stooks were forwarded 

 for examination in 1908, birds seriously diseased with Cobbold's 

 Strongylosis, wasted piners that could hardly fly. These were 

 probably sick birds that had been crowded out from the good 

 feed on the moor by the healthier birds which live there in packs, 

 the latter only occasionally make a raid upon the corn. 



The following extracts support the opinion that over-much 

 corn-feeding is a precursor of disease : 



Macdonald quotes as follows from a pamphlet written by 

 Mr William Colquhoun of Ross-shire in 1858 : " The Grouse 

 have fed a great deal on the stooks during the disease (1854- 

 1856) ; and on the stubbles after the corn was stacked ; and 

 also in spring on the sown corn. This year (1858) the Grouse 

 did not come to the corn as in former years." (The disease 

 had then quite disappeared.) 2 



Again Colquhoun says that Grouse thrive in confinement 

 when fed on corn ; but allows that their greed for corn increases 

 in disease years. He thinks that possibly they are upset by 

 eating damaged and unwholesome heather, and are driven to 

 stook and stubble for a sufficiency of food. 3 



Speedy, too, writes as follows : - 



"An excessive consumption of corn by the Grouse species, 

 particularly in wet seasons when the harvests are late, has been 

 assigned as a cause of the ' Grouse Disease.' " 4 But he goes 



1 Charles St John, "Natural History and Sport in Moray," p. 202. Edinburgh: 

 David Douglas, 1882. 



- Macdonald, "Grouse Disease," p. 123. William Colquhoun, "Remarks on the 

 Decrease of Grouse and the Grouse Disease," p. 29. Edinburgh : Eduionston and 

 Douglas, 1858. 



* Colquhoun's Pamphlet, p. 30. 



4 Speedy, "Sport in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland," p. 200. 



