Ill GROUSE DISEASE 29 



January, but to the end of February, though in fine seasons 

 they begin to nest very early in March. Hardy must the 

 grouse be, and prolific beyond calculation, to supply the 

 numbers that are yearly killed, legally and illegally.^ Vermin, 

 however, are their worst enemies ; and where the ground is 

 kept clear of all their winged and four-footed destroyers, no 

 shooting seems to reduce their numbers. 



I cannot say that my taste leads me to rejoice in the 

 slaughter of a large bag of grouse in one day. I have no 

 ambition to see my name in the county newspapers as having 

 bagged my seventy brace of grouse, in a certain number of 

 hours, on such and such a hill. I have much more satisfaction 

 in killing a moderate quantity of birds, in a wild and varied 

 range of hill, with my single brace of dogs, and wandering in 

 any direction that fancy leads me, than in having my day's 

 beat laid out for me, with relays of dogs and keepers, and all 

 the means of killing the grouse on easy walking ground, where 

 they are so numerous that one has only to load and fire. In 

 the latter case, I generally find myself straying off in pursuit of 

 some teal or snipe, to the neglect of the grouse, and the disgust 

 of the keeper, who may think his dignity compromised by 

 attending a sportsman who returns with less than fifty brace. 

 Nothing is so easy to shoot as a grouse, when they are tolerably 

 tame ; and with a little choice of his shots, a very moderate 



' Since the days of Mr. St. John the scourge known as the grouse disease has become 

 only too familiar in Scotland. Its iirst recorded appearance was in 1838. It was again 

 prevalent in 1856, and in 1868 a disastrous outbreak visited the greater part of the 

 Scottish moors. Subsequently, in 1872-73, in 1880, and in 1889, it has been experienced 

 with more or less severity. Various causes, more or less conjectural, have been assigned 

 for this mortality. Although this is not the place to enter into a disquisition on the 

 subject, we may enumerate some causes as follows : overstocking of moors, the artificial 

 destruction of vermin, frosted heather, the large consumption of corn in some places by 

 the birds, the existence of a parasitic worm in the intestines, etc. 



To each of these theories a very probable, if not absolutely conclusive, refutation has 

 been supplied. The widely-extended prevalence of the disease, when it does break out 

 is not compatible with the existence of any cause which is more or less local. W^e must 

 be content to assume that the hitherto undiscovered cause is akin to those which produce 

 widespread epidemics among mankind, though in all probability some of the foregoing 

 conditions may tend to increase the virulence of the disease at certain times and in certain 

 districts. 



For an exhaustive treatment of the subject we would refer the reader to Dr. T. 

 Spencer Cobbold's The Grouse Disease, and T. Speedy's Sport in the Highlands and 

 Lowlands. 



Dr. E. Klein {Etiology and Pathology of Grouse Disease : Macmillan, 1892) is the 

 last inquirer into the malady. He deems it " an acute, infectious pneumonia," and has 

 detected and cultivated the microbe characteristic of the disease. He can suggest no 

 remedy, however, except the old-fashioned receipt to destroy all suspicious-looking 

 birds. 



