328 THE KEEPER'S BOOK 



graph wires, the fact should serve to indicate that there 

 are remedies for such possible sources of disaster. If 

 no such cause is to be discovered, he should cut the 

 bird open and look for disease. All grouse found dead 

 on the moor should be burnt. 



The Grouse Commission is still sitting, and will 

 next year publish a full report, which will make in- 

 teresting reading ; up till now nothing definite has been 

 discovered of the predisposing cause of grouse disease. 



In a previous chapter we mentioned that Dr. Shipley, 

 F.R.S., who is investigating the subject, has not yet 

 been able to find the host of the tapeworm. The 

 theories are many, but before any are accepted 

 abundant proof will require to be brought forward. 

 Some keepers think that the dog will be found to be the 

 cause of the tapeworm in grouse. Dr. Shipley is giving 

 mites and ticks careful attention. In Ross-shire ticks 

 are numerous in certain woods, and keepers say they 

 kill a large number of black game, but the tick has never 

 been found in the crop of the grouse. He says, for 

 instance, that the tapeworms which live in the alimen- 

 tary canal of the grouse pass their younger or larval 

 stages in the body of some lower animal. This lower 

 animal presumably an insect, or mollusc, or spider 

 must be eaten by a grouse, and the larval tapeworm 

 is set free before the latter can grow up into the adult 

 tapeworm which we find in the intestine of the grouse. 

 In searching for this second host, it was natural to 

 begin with the ectoparasites, which one would imagine 



