114 THE GROUSE 



The Committee have also made a free use 

 of printed information and instructions as 

 to the development of the investigation, 

 and the aids to it still required. 



Before following the labours of the in- 

 vestigating Committee further, it will be 

 proper to give a brief account of recorded 

 outbreaks of grouse disease, especially the 

 more extensive of and virulent of these ; 

 the measures, if any, taken to suppress 

 these attacks of the disease and prevent 

 their recurrence ; and the state of opinion 

 on this vexed subject at the date (1904) 

 when the Committee began their work. 



Among the older writers on this 

 question — we can hardly say authorities, 

 for admittedly their views and conclusions 

 were of a fluid and tentative consistence 

 — the first outbreak of grouse disease has 

 been variously put as having occurred in 

 1838, 1843, and 1846. By Mr. Tom 

 Speedy, in his work on Sport in the 

 Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, it 

 is said : " The first time grouse disease 

 attracted special attention was in 1838. 



