402 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



become very wild. Many more indifferent shots, and indifferent 

 sportsmen too, now come north for a short outing on the moors. 

 Long ago the lairds and their friends alone shot the moors, and 

 were content with smaller bags. Now people who pay high rents 

 want larger bags, and cram into a week's shooting what used 

 to be a whole season's sport. As a consequence many more 

 birds are wounded, if not in the vital organs, in other parts, 

 which wounds affect their constitutions, and if they live till 

 another year they probably breed weaker-constitutioned birds. 

 Before Peregrines were shot down and trapped and destroyed, 

 these weakly birds were picked off, being usually the easiest 

 captured, and the last of the covey or pack in flight. How 

 many instances can be given — authentic instances — of Grouse 

 disease appearing to any alarming extent, or at all, in deer- 

 forests ? This, I believe, would be well worth working out. My 

 belief is — but I do not speak with data at my side — that if this 

 part of the subject be investigated very few authentic records 

 will be found of Grouse disease in the deer-forests of Scot- 

 land. And why? Because Peregrines, Martens, Wild Cats, 

 and " vermin " are not slain indiscriminately in deer-forests, 

 and the Grouse there leads a more natural and less artificial 

 life. If reference be made to my essay on the Capercaillie 

 of Scotland (published by David Douglas, Edinburgh), it will 

 be seen that some natural laws as to range, distribution, 

 and " spread " of species, have a direct and powerful bearing 

 also upon Grouse {pp. cit., chap, xix., p. 107). Formerly 

 Grouse had great and extensive areas to feed over ; now 

 owing to overstocking and perfectly reckless and ignorant 

 interference with Nature's laws, they are " cabin'd, cribb'd, 

 confin'd." Formerly one bird had perhaps acres and acres to 

 itself — or, shall we say, one covey had; now every acre, we may 

 say, has its covey or coveys. Formerly birds were less plentiful, 

 more healthy, and men were less greedy ; now Grouse are 

 swarming, and a most unnatural state of things exists; not satisfied 

 with this even, men want more and more, and grudge a single bird 

 to feed the Falcon's young. As long as they do so, so long will 

 Grouse disease recur. A direct cause of rapid increase of Grouse 

 is the regular system now of burning heather, a better succes- 

 sion of young fresh food being supplied. But the natural 

 outcome of this is that when late and severe frosts do come, as 



