sites). At the present time we know that grouse, 

 like other animals, have a considerable fauna 

 living both in and on them. They are in fact 

 not only birds, but in a small way Zoological 

 Gardens. The scientific members of the In- 

 quiry have recorded eight different species 

 of insect or mite living either amongst the 

 feathers or on the skin of the bird or in 

 other ways associated closely with the grouse, 

 and no fewer than fifteen animal paraiite* 

 living in the alimentary canal, the lungs, or other 

 organs. Some of these are negligible. They 

 either exist in too small numbers or infest but a 

 very small percentage of birds ; others, how- 

 ever, are found in about 95 per cent, of the cases 

 investigated and two at least are associated 

 with grave disorders which often terminate in 

 death. 



The interest of the insects and mites which 

 live on the skin of the bird is that they very 

 likely form the second host of tapeworm-, 

 which undoubtedly do a certain amount of 

 harm to the lining of the alimentary canal. 

 There are, for instance, a couple of bird-lice, 

 lively little creatures, which take cover amongst 

 the small feathers which, by the way, form 

 their arid diet like startled deer in the under- 

 growth of a forest. On a piner these bird- 

 lice increase enormously in number, and their 

 numbers to some extent serve as a measure of 

 the gravity of the disease. There are also two 

 species of a flea belonging to a genus which 

 serves as the second or larval host for a tape- 

 worm of the rat which is nearly allied to the 

 most dangerous tapeworm of the grouse, but 

 the fleas do not seem to be common, and we have 

 not yet succeeded in finding in them the larval 

 tapeworms we sought. There is, further, a 



