480 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



Some Notes on Broomhead Moor by Mr R. H. RIMINGTON WILSON. 



Having fortunately but little experience of epidemics on this moor, the writer 

 can only approach the question of disease in a negative way, and try to suggest 

 some of the conditions which may tend to make a moor comparatively free from 

 its visits. 



In the first place, it may be stated that there has been no serious outbreak 

 here since 1874, but that, before this date, disease in a virulent form attacked 

 the moor on an average once every seven years. 



Shooting over dogs was given up about 1870, and the moor was cleared of 

 sheep in 1877. 



It may here be remarked that on the first occasion on which a total of over 

 thirteen hundred brace in a day was made on this moor the ground was carrying, 

 roughly, a sheep to 4 acres, and this had been the case for many years. 



It is hardly necessary to state that the heather has been burned, and the 

 vermin kept down in the most careful manner, and that the moor in all details 

 has had every attention from a most keen and competent head-keeper. The 

 condition of the moor, however, in all essentials remains the same as it has 

 been for the last fifty years and more. The same head-keeper has had charge 

 of it ; no fresh blood has been introduced. No drainage has been done, and 

 practically no alterations of importance have been made. There has been only 

 one radical innovation. 



Why then the comparative freedom from disease and great increase of stock 

 on this moor ? It can hardly be attributed solely to good fortune. 



The writer can only conclude that the answer is to be found in the above- 

 mentioned radical innovation namely, the peculiar system of driving that has 

 been in vogue here for the last thirty-five years. 



The driving of Grouse was of course first adopted as being the only means of 

 making the birds accessible. It was only experience that demonstrated the vast 

 and unexpected benefit to the health of the birds that followed its adoption. 



In the same way the Broomhead system of driving the birds backwards and 

 forwards over the same set of butts was initiated as a matter of convenience and 

 facility of transport, and with no intelligent anticipation of the results which the 

 writer feels sure have followed, and to which reference will be made. 



The killing-off of the old cocks is usually put forward as the chief reason 

 why a moor benefits from driving. No doubt their destruction is desirable, and 



