The Red Grouse, " 



The Red Grouse is strictly monogamous, pairing early in the spring. The 

 nest, which is shallow and formed of a few twigs and feathers, usually contains 

 from eight to twelve eggs of a regular oval form, yellowish-white, clouded and 

 blotched with darker brown. The young, which are covered with fine close down, 

 are reared by both parents, and run about soon after they are hatched. The hen 

 manifests great anxiety for their safety, and will feign lameness or injury to 

 induce a person who is approaching them to follow her, letting her pursuer 

 approach so near as sometimes to be able to knock her down with a stick. The 

 flock keep together till the end of the autumn, and in the beginning of winter 

 several flocks will unite to form a pack, separating in pairs in the spring. 



A very remarkable circumstance connected with this species is the presence 

 of a violently destructive epidemic disease amongst them. This is so well marked 

 and generally known that it is spoken of as " the Grouse disease," and occasionally 

 it almost exterminates the whole of the birds on particular moors. The high 

 value placed upon Grouse moors has led to the most careful investigation of the 

 cause of this destructive disease, which has been carried on for many years. The 

 last investigator, Dr. Klein, ascertained by the most carefully conducted series of 

 observations, that the disease depended on the presence of a bacillus in the lungs 

 and liver of the birds, and that these bacilli or minute microscopic germs possess 

 great powers of vitality, and remain in the soil during the winter and spread the 

 disease into the following year. Dr. Klein describes the birds as dying on the moors, 

 the living bacilli remaining in the flesh or the soil, and producing the disease in 

 the following spring. He says that the only measure of dealing with this disease 

 in order to check its spread, is by the process of what may be termed " stamping 

 out." All suspected Grouse on the moors should at all times be destroyed, but 

 the dead bodies should not be left to propogate the epidemic, but carefully removed 

 from the moor and burned ; burying them is absolutely useless. 



Dr. Klein, in his valuable and exhaustive work on " Grouse Disease," says : 

 " I am not sure that those who bum the heather on moors on which Grouse 

 disease prevails are not following a right plan, for the reason that hereby they 

 remove that which most likely harbours the adhering infective material ; nor am 

 I sure that, on moors on which disease has been present, an extensive battue of 

 Grouse would not also remove many of the birds that have the disease in a mild 

 form, and that might carry it on, as it were, through the autumn and winter. It 

 is therefore especially important that during autumn, and possibly the winter, a 

 careful look-out should be kept for suspicious Grouse, for it is these which require 

 removal particularly." 



