124 Practical Game Preserving. 



to be peculiarly susceptible to the attack of any such 

 entozoa. 



As to hawk destruction also being a cause of grouse 

 disease, we must not say too much. So many sportsmen 

 seem so to regard it seriously that one is almost inclined 

 to think there is something in it. But looking at the con- 

 jecture with a desire to see it in a favourable light, we 

 cannot but shake our heads and " ha'e our doubts." For 

 our part, we think the idea preposterous, and we have 

 given it much consideration. Were it not for the support 

 it has received of some sportsmen of note, it would, we 

 feel, be scouted. As we said before, we have no hesita- 

 tion in setting down grouse disease to one cause and no 

 other, viz., preserving, or rather overstocking. To one 

 who has any experience of game preserving, this will suffi- 

 ciently account for the outbreak of disease among game, 

 whether furred or feathered. It is the rage for big bags that 

 has brought about this malady, and if we go back to the 

 first outbreak in districts hitherto free, it will be found to 

 have occurred on that moor, or moors, where the birds were 

 most plentiful. Up to a certain point there may be no limit, 

 but just as one hen more in a poultry run causes many little 

 ailments to break out, so the overstocking or sickening of the 

 ground is, in our humble opinion, accountable for the out- 

 break of grouse disease. In some years the character of the 

 season wards it off : at others, when the weather is cold, wet 

 and unfavourable, and the birds are thin and in poor heart, 

 disease comes upon them and they die off by scores. Hard 

 winters are said to cause grouse disease. Why, forsooth ? 

 Because the birds come down into the farms, eat oats and so 



