LOCAL CONDITIONS AND HEALTH OF GROUSE 319 



and moreover that it bears an exact proportion to the importance 

 of each district from a sporting point of view. Thus it will be 

 seen that on the finest Grouse ground of Caithness, Ross, Inver- 

 ness, Banff, Aberdeen, Forfar, Perth, Argyll, and the Border 

 counties disease has occurred more frequently than in the lightly 

 stocked areas of the same countries, while from the extreme 

 west coast and the deer forests of the Central Highlands little 

 or no mortality has been reported. The map of Northern 

 England shows the same results, though not quite so conclusively 

 since the reports from that country are less complete than from 

 Scotland. 



" Grouse Disease," then, is not confined to any particular 

 geographical area, but seems to bear a relation to the number 

 of Grouse in each moorland district, and the maps accordingly 

 form an interesting record of the districts in which the largest 

 numbers of Grouse are to be found. 



An attempt has been made to trace a connexion between 

 the numbers of Grouse, and their liability to " disease " in a 

 particular district, and the geological formation or meteoro- 

 logical conditions in that district. So far as geological forma- 

 tions are concerned there does not appear to be any close 

 connexion. The best Grouse-producing district in Caithness 

 has a mineral sub-soil of old red sandstone on the east and 

 granite on the west ; Sutherland, in addition to the above- 

 named rocks, has oolites and gneiss, Easter Ross consists 

 principally of old red sandstone. The famous Grouse moors of 

 Strathnairn, Strathdearn, and Badenoch lie principally on a 

 bed of gneiss or gneissose rocks ; the equally productive moors 

 of Upper Banffshire on quartzite, mica-schist, and graphitic 

 mica-schist with smaller areas of old red sandstone and granite. 

 The upper districts of Strathdon and Strathdee contain an 

 assortment of nearly all the above-named formations with a 

 few others in parts. The Forfarshire and Central Perthshire 

 moors lie principally on quartzite and mica -schist. Ayr, 

 Strathclyde, and the Lothians contain a large assortment of 

 different carboniferous rocks, while in the southern Highlands 

 from Wigtown on the west to Berwick on the east the most 



