DISEASES OF GAME BIRDS 



A FEW weeks before the Field induced Dr. Klein to take 

 up the question of grouse disease and to go to Scotland 

 to investigate, the author had prevailed upon M. Pasteur to offer 

 to examine the disease, and it was after this was announced 

 in the Times and Morning Post that Dr. Klein began his 

 work. The author regretted that he did undertake it, because 

 it just prevented the necessary grouse being sent to M. Pasteur, 

 and that great man had a way not only of discovering 

 bacilli but also of some way of killing them. Dr. Klein 

 may or may not have discovered the bacillus of the grouse 

 disease, but if so he never gave the disease to a healthy grouse, 

 nor did he even attempt to discover a cure for or prevention 

 from the disease, and however interesting to science his 

 discovery may have been, it was of no use in practice. If he did 

 really discover the cause of the disease, and if grouse are only 

 subject to take the disease in the same manner as the creatures 

 to which he administered his disease, then there appears no 

 escape from the conclusion that the disease is injected under 

 the skin of healthy grouse. 



Every one knows that grouse disease generally shows signs 

 of its coming, and yet when it really attacks a bird the latter 

 often dies within a few hours. The author consequently does 

 not believe that the bare legs and dull plumage associated with 

 grouse disease always imply that the birds have the disease, but 

 only that they are in a condition in which they can more easily 

 take it, or have had and recovered from it. This view is 

 supported by the fact that, after the last attack of grouse disease 

 in Badenoch, it was noticed when the birds re-started to breed 



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