162 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



The question has frequently been asked whether there is 

 an epidemic form of " Grouse Disease " which in spite of minute 

 inquiry and search has eluded the vigilance of the Inquiry 

 during the last six years, and whether the Committee never 

 came across the genuine epizootic " Grouse Disease " at all. 



Apart from the question of whether Klein's pneumonia has 

 any existence in reality, all the outbreaks of disease amongst 

 Grouse which have come under the observation of the Com- 

 mittee can be ascribed either to Strongylosis or to Coccidiosis, 

 the only two diseases which are now recognised as causing 

 widespread mortality amongst Grouse. And the principal sign 

 of both these forms of disease is loss of weight. 



Yet one of the most persistently quoted observations, which 

 some sportsmen and gamekeepers still maintain to be true in 

 fact, is that in some epidemics there is a certain proportion of 

 birds which succumb to so acute and virulent a form of 

 " Grouse Disease " that they die before any loss of flesh or 

 weight can have time to show itself, and before any change 

 in the appearance of the feathers becomes manifest. 



This view is founded not on actual measurement of weight, 

 but on the bird's general appearance of good feather and normal 

 weight, as estimated by the observer who takes the bird in his 

 hand when it is found dead on the moor. 



In most alleged outbreaks of " Grouse Disease " the birds 

 have been collected and burned, or buried by the score in a 

 moss-hag or under a rock. They were never weighed, and 

 never carefully examined. Yet without careful weighing and 

 examination it is impossible to come to any reasonable con- 

 clusion as to their condition or the cause of their death. 



The Committee's field-observer has himself been present on 

 several occasions when such birds have been picked up and 

 passed from one to another of the keepers and the gillies ; 

 full-feathered, richly-coloured hens, perhaps found almost warm 

 but dead upon their nests. And these birds have been weighed 

 in the hands and their weight guessed as fully normal, notwith- 

 standing the condition of the breast, yet the spring balance 



