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brace the first day. In a short time the birds become very wild, generally rising beyond range. 

 They also ' pack ' on the high grounds, especially before stormy weather. The Grouse-shooters 

 then resort to driving. The guns are partially concealed in erections made of turf, and the birds 

 in the next valley are driven by the gamekeepers and their assistants over the brow of the inter- 

 vening hill. In the thick of the drive the shooting is fast and furious, and enormous bags are 

 sometimes made. Grouse-driving is excellent sport for the mere marksman, requiring a very 

 quick hand and a very accurate eye ; but a more sportsmanlike occupation is Grouse-stalking. 

 The moors are interspersed in many parts with narrow winding valleys, locally called ' groughs,' 

 where you may often get a chance shot at a Grouse, when you have learnt where to look for 

 him. Nothing is more delightful than to stroll up these groughs in spring, on the edges of the 

 streams which generally run down them. The sloping banks are a favourite breeding-place of 

 the King-Ouzel ; sometimes a chance Black Grouse nests in a quiet corner ; the Twite is generally 

 to be seen ; and, strange to say, the Grasshopper Warbler may often be heard. In the lower ground 

 you may often ' flush ' a Snipe ; and as you emerge from the grough, on the higher plateaux you 

 are not unlikely to come upon a Curlew or two, or a party of Golden Plovers ; and if you are 

 lucky, you may drop upon their nests. In early spring you may chance on a small flock of 

 Dotterel, resting on the hills during their migrations ; but of course the Grouse remains always 

 the bird par excellence of the moors." 



During the last few years the Grouse have greatly decreased in numbers, owing to a disease 

 the exact nature of which appears still to be to some extent undecided, but which by various 

 authorities has been referred to a variety of causes ; and the numerous letters to the ' Field ' 

 and other sporting newspapers clearly show the interest taken in the subject by most sporting 

 men. Some have given it as their opinion that the plague is caused by excessive interbreeding; 

 others put it down to overcrowding, underfeeding, " battery shooting," and other equally varied 

 causes. Canon Tristram ascribes it in part to the excessive extermination of the birds of prey, 

 which, feeding on the weaker birds, act as a sort of sanitary police by preventing these from 

 transmitting their weaknesses to the next generation. The most reasonable theory is given by 

 Dr. Spencer Cobbold, who, in a pamphlet lately published on the subject, gives it as his opinion 

 that it is caused by internal parasites which, in the struggle for existence which is one of the 

 great laws of nature, have gained the upper hand. He is careful to state that the mere presence 

 of internal entozoa does not necessarily result from a vitiated state of the body of the birds, as 

 many healthy specimens may and do contain these internal parasites to a certain extent. He 

 states that two species of entozoa are concerned in the production of the Grouse-disease, the one 

 being the Grouse tapeworm {Taenia calva, Baird), and the other the Grouse-strongle, which he 

 has provisionally named Strongylus pergracilis, it being, he believes, new to science. After having 

 carefully examined four diseased Grouse, he writes as follows : — " Examples of this new parasite 

 occupied the whole length of both of the intestinal caeca. They were present in greater or less 

 abundance in all four of the birds. The male parasite gave an average of one third of an inch 

 length, the females extending up to three eighths of an inch, or rather more. The latter 

 had their oviducts crowded with eggs arranged in single file, displaying various stages of yolk- 

 segmentation ; but I did not notice any fully formed embryos. It may afford some notion of 

 the extraordinary abundance of these nematode entozoa, when I state that from less than a 



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