CAUSES OF MORTALITY IN THE RED GROUSE 149 



a portion of her strength. She recuperates in sitting, but feeds 

 only scantily the while. Then her troubles begin to be more 

 pressing, especially if by any mishap she loses her eggs and has 

 to lay and sit a second time. If, however, by the end of June, 

 she hatches off, she must still be constantly on the watch for 

 danger to her chicks. In July she has to moult again. Little 

 wonder that by August she is sometimes reduced to the con- 

 dition of a " piner," or that, when the shooting season comes, 

 she is discarded from the day's bag, to be submitted for ex- 

 amination under the suspicion of " disease." 



It is the same story precisely as in the case of birds handi- 

 capped for life through having been hatched late in a second 

 brood. In the one case the birds are full grown and healthy 

 to begin with, but have been unable to stand the strain of 

 breeding and moulting. In the other case they have never 

 had a chance to become full grown. In either case the course 

 of natural taxation is the same, the parasitic infestment is the 

 same, and the final result to the bird is the same. The only 

 thing which differs is the primary cause of weakness, and this 

 may be one, or several, of a very considerable number of causes 

 that lie in wait for the life of the Red Grouse on every moor. 



Of accidents which may happen in the process of laying, 

 there is one which is well known in captive birds, but is rare in 

 nature, namely, a shortage of lime rendering the eggs deficient 

 in shell. Soft-shelled eggs not only fail to stimulate the muscles 

 of the oviduct, but give them no purchase upon which to act. 

 The consequence is that the egg is not expelled, but is broken 

 in the duct, and is followed by other eggs until the bird dies 

 either from exhaustion or from a rupture of the oviduot involving 

 the peritoneum. Soft-shelled eggs in wild birds generally appear 

 in a second clutch laid shortly after the loss of the first nestful. 



Gastro-uterine gestation must always be rare, but one well- 

 marked case in a Grouse was sent up for examination. The egg, 

 when shed by the ovary, failed to enter the open upper end of 

 the Fallopian tube, and so passed into the body cavity. By 

 causing irritation there it became adherent to the peritoneal 



