NATURE OF THE DISEASE 



sporadic cases, or will be barely appreciable, or will 

 be absent altogether. 



And so also with overstocking and over-preserva- 

 tion. This is admitted by most to have an injurious 

 effect, inasmuch as it is liable to produce too great 

 a struggle for existence and a consequent weakening 

 of the birds on the one hand, and, on the other, a 

 possibility, owing to the great number of birds left, 

 of cases of disease lingering on through the winter 

 as mild cases, but ready in the following spring to 

 cause an epidemic of the severe fatal disease (see 

 below). Dr. R. Farquharson, in a letter to the Lancet, 

 Sept. 1874, was the first to state the opinion that 

 the grouse disease was of the nature of a con- 

 tagious fever, since " the idea of an epidemic and 

 infectious fever fits the facts already obtained better 

 than anything else" {Grouse Disease, Macdonald, 

 p. 129). 



He argued that, as great differences prevail in the 

 degree of loss of flesh observed — some dead or dying 

 birds being found as plump as in their healthy con- 

 dition, whilst others are found reduced to mere skele- 

 tons, — this is in favour of its specific or constitutional 

 nature . . . "so that whilst those dying from a very 

 acute attack, or whose constitutions are unable to 

 withstand its debilitating influence for more than a 

 brief period, retain the outward appearance of health, 



