334 ' XHK ZOOLOGIST. 



Brougliton, and mentioned above, No. 7 ; (b) the bird that was 

 found in a dying condition on Flat Moors, and mentioned No. 6 ; 

 and (c) the bird that I brought to London with me, and that died 

 here after two days. In no instance have I been able to discover 

 the presence of a definite form of bacteria. Numerous micro- 

 scopic specimens were examined of the liver and kidney, and the 

 blood ; they were prepared by the methods used for the micro- 

 scopic study of bacteria (staining with certain aniline dyes), but 

 no kind of bacteria was discoverable. (2) I have made a large 

 number of cultivations of blood on artificial nutritive media 

 (nutrient gelatine, Agar Agar mixture, &c.), such as are used for 

 this purpose in bacteriological investigations, but I have not been 

 able to obtain any growths. I was therefore forced to conclude 

 that, with our present means, no bacteria can be discovered as 

 having anything to do with the Grouse disease. 



I directed my attention then to the second theory, that 

 advanced by Prof. Cobbold. The three birds which I used for 

 the bacterial investigation, and also the others examined, con- 

 tained no strongyles in their intestines, and therefore Cobbold's 

 theory was not applicable to our Grouse disease. 



The third theory above mentioned, namely tapeworm and per- 

 foration of the bowels, did seem to a certain extent to harmonise 

 with the observation made by myself, and recorded in a former 

 paragraph. And I confess it was this theory which I provisionally 

 accepted while in Ayrshire. But after I returned to London, and 

 after I had an opportunity of dissecting the two deceased birds 

 caught in Cumberland — one of which died two days afterwards in 

 London — and found no signs of perforation of the bowels, and, 

 moreover, in one bird only very few tapeworms in the intestine, 

 while the intestines, liver, and kidney showed such marked signs 

 of disease ; and further, when I found that Mr. Crisp had stated 

 some years ago, in the ' Pathological Transactions,' that he had 

 dissected several birds not dead of the disease, and that he found 

 in them numerous tapeworms ; and finally, taking into considera- 

 tion that many competent anatomists had dissected birds dead of 

 the disease, but had not noticed any perforation of the bowels, 

 I had to give up this theory of the tapeworm being the cause of 

 the Grouse disease. 



I will also state that the tapeworm theory always presented to 

 me this serious difficulty, vis., how to reconcile with it the diseased 



