SOME NOTICES 



OF 

 THE FIRST EDITION OF 



THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



Published August 1911 



The Times, August loth, 1911. 



The primary object of the Committee was to investigate the so-called 

 "Grouse Disease/' and they have evidently felt it their duty to take the 

 widest possible view of the problem before them. With the sometimes 

 questioned exception of the St Hilda's wren, a bird of no economic importance, 

 the Grouse is the only bird "peculiar" to Great Britain and Ireland. The 

 present monograph gives the fullest possible account of the bird, both in health 

 and in disease. In fact, apart from man and maybe the frog, it is doubtful if 

 any vertebrate has been so thoroughly investigated. Its life-history, its habits, 

 its home life, its anatomy, its physiology, even its psychology, its weaknesses, 

 its ailments are in these volumes remorselessly revealed. 



The book is most beautifully illustrated and owes much to the artistic brush 

 of Dr E. A. Wilson, the Field Observer, and the whole appearance of the work 

 is a credit to the publishers. It is also an example of what a few energetic 

 men can produce when unhampered by official restrictions and red tape. The 

 present report is the antithesis of the ordinary Blue Book, yet it has been 

 produced at an amazingly small cost. During the whole of the inquiry the 

 average income expended" on the work was but 727 a year, and the whole 

 of the inquiry has not cost more than 4,366, every penny of which has 

 come out of private purses. That this has been done is due in the main to 

 the energy and self-sacrificing devotion to the work of the inquiry shown by 

 the chairman, Lord Lovat, and the secretary, Mr A. S. Leslie. 



The Morning Post, August loth, 1911. 



The " Grouse Disease" Inquiry, which had been undertaken some six or 

 seven years ago by a Departmental Committee of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries, has issued its report in two volumes, entitled " The Grouse in Health 

 and in Disease." These volumes have been dedicated by gracious permission 

 to the King. 



The two volumes are lavishly illustrated and beautifully printed, and they 

 reflect great credit on the Field Observer, Dr E. A. Wilson, on the secretary, 



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