192 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



good condition. All the grouse, and they amount 

 in number to some twelve hundred, which have 

 been investigated, have been weighed, and in 

 every case where there has been any disease 

 there has invariably been wasting ; the sick 

 birds are always thin, have lost flesh, and are 

 in a poor condition. One final feature of Klein's 

 grouse disease is its seasonal incidence ; usually 

 it is said to occur with greatest virulence in 

 the spring, to die down during the summer, 

 and to recur in a less virulent form in the autumn. 

 To this seasonal variation I shall return. 



Klein's grouse disease is still a matter of 

 inquiry. During the five or six years whilst 

 the Commission has been prosecuting its in- 

 quiries, this " disease " has frequently been 

 reported, but on investigation the characteristics 

 enumerated above have not been present ; still, 

 the sportsman and the gamekeeper, who do not 

 weigh their grouse and seldom their evidence, 

 and who are but imperfectly acquainted with 

 post mortem changes, firmly believe in the exis- 

 tence of this " disease/' and it may be that 

 it really exists and that it is the misfortune 

 of the Inquiry that in their researches the 

 investigators have not come across it. 



