46 THE GROUSE 



a protracted period been engaged in 

 investigating the problem. Their report 

 is now anxiously awaited. Definite light 

 will then, it is expected, be thrown on this 

 hitherto baffling trouble, and reliable 

 conclusions for its eradication arrived at. 

 The report will be noticed in the succeed- 

 ing pages. 



Grouse are also freely open to destruc- 

 tion from many beasts and birds of prey 

 which it is the keeper's business to dis- 

 cover and counteract or destroy. Grouse 

 and other game-birds are probably much 

 more numerous now than in the older 

 time when preserving was less attended to. 

 Whether their foes have proportionally 

 increased may be doubted; yet experience 

 has often shown, both on land and sea, 

 that when superabundance prevails in 

 any form of animal or fish life an antidote 

 is provided, and the " balance of nature " 

 preserved by a proportionate increase 

 of forms of predaceous life. A goodly 

 number of beasts and birds of prey 

 formerly plentiful are now rarely seen, 



