13 



heather plants would be as tall as lofty elms, 

 their flowers as big as cabbages, the grouse 

 would be about six or seven times the size of 

 " Chantecler " at the Porte St. Martin. 



Creeping and wriggling up the stem and over 

 the leaves and gradually yet surely making their 

 way towards the flowers would be seen hundreds 

 and thousands of silvery-white worms about 

 the size of young earthworms. Lying on the 

 leaves and on the plant generally would be 

 seen thousands of spherical bodies the size of 

 grains of wheat, the cysts of the Coccidium, 

 and on the ground and on the plants as large 

 as split-peas would be seen the tapeworm eggs 

 patiently awaiting the advent of their second 

 host. It is perhaps a picture which will not 

 appeal to all, but yet it represents what unseen 

 and unsuspected is always going on on a grouse 

 moor. 



Two other points remain, the seasonal 

 character of the disease, and whether any 

 means can be suggested to check either Cocci- 

 diosis or Strongylosis, or both. 



" Grouse disease " is always said to be at its 

 worst in the spring months, to decline during 

 the summer, and to recrudesce in a milder form 

 in the autumn. Coccidiosis undoubtedly is a 

 spring disease ; it attacks the chicks, and if 

 they survive the first six or seven weeks of 

 their life they usually live to grow up. This 

 disease certainly abates during the summer, 

 but it does not recrudesce during the autumn. 

 Strongylosis also occurs most virulently in the 

 spring, when the birds are exhausted by a 

 winter of semi-starvation and the female 

 especially by the demands made on her by 

 egg-laying ; it is also prevalent in autumn, but 

 the worst cases have by this time presumably 



