2 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



three exceptions. The first instance is that noticed by Professor Newton in 

 his "Dictionary of Birds," 1 when Baron Dickson succeeded in acclimatising the 

 species near Gottenburg in Sweden ; the second is that of its introduction in 

 1893-1894 to the Hohe Venn, a high tract of moorland on the borders of 

 Belgium and Germany, south of Spa, where Red Grouse are still thriving ; and 

 the third the successful experiment on Lord Iveagh's property at Icklingham in 

 Suffolk in 1903, where the birds, despite the necessity of an artificial water supply 

 on the dry, sandy heaths, had increased in 1909, and appeared likely in 1910 

 to form a permanent colony. In the Hohe Venn district after two failures fifty 

 pairs or more were liberated in August 1894, and by 1901 had increased to about 

 a thousand head in spite of regular shooting. Professor Somerville of Oxford, 

 who has kindly furnished particulars, saw the birds there in September 1910. 



During the last twenty years it has been strongly borne in upon the general 



public, as well as sportsmen, that the welfare of the Grouse is an affair of national 



interest ; for game of every description is becoming less and less a 



Economic - 



importance luxury of the rich, and more and more a regular factor of our food 

 supply, facts which cannot be ignored by the modern economist, and 

 are now considered to be well within the province of the Government, which 

 has at last consented to bestir itself in the matter. 



Here I propose to give a brief account of the position of the Red Grouse 

 in the class of birds. In nearly all linear systems of classification put forward 

 ciassiflca- ^7 mo( lern systematists, whether they start from the highest or from 

 tlon - the lowest forms of creation, the large order Galliformes or its 



equivalent stands about midway in the carinate or keel-breasted birds, being 

 connected most closely on the one hand with the Falconiformes and Anseriformes, 

 on the other with the Gruiformes and Charadrii.formes. Its position is thus well 

 ascertained, and no serious doubts have been raised as to its constituent members, 

 except that the Tinamidse (Tinamous) of South America, which have been 

 sometimes included in it, are now by pretty general consent placed next to 

 the Ratite birds, with keelless breastbone. 



Under the order Galliformes may be placed in suborders the curious Mesites 

 of Madagascar, the no less peculiar Opisthocomus or Hoatzin of northern South 

 America, and the Old World Turnices (Button Quails) with their close ally 

 Pedionomus ; but the only suborder with which we are here concerned is that 

 known by the name of Galli. Under the Galli, again, we need only make 



1 " Dictionary of Birds," p. 389. 



