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teaspoonful of the csecal contents I obtained many hundreds of specimens. I am confident that 

 no one of the four Grouse contained less than a thousand examples ; and I believe that one of 

 the more diseased and emaciated birds contained fully ten times that number." Referring to 

 the presence of tapeworms and strongles in both healthy and diseased birds, he says that " the 

 only difference between impoverished and healthy Grouse in this latter respect appears to have 

 been, that in the case of the birds out of condition we encountered a relatively larger number of 

 these nematode worms. It is merely the difference between thousands and tens of thousands ; 

 but this disparity, if considered in association with the varying strength of constitution of indi- 

 vidual avian bearers, will be amply sufficient, in my opinion, to account for either impoverishment 

 or retention of health, as the case may be. That in some seasons the tapeworms may acquire 

 ascendancy, and thus become the sole cause of mortality amongst the Grouse, is quite possible ; 

 and under any circumstances their presence would be likely to aggravate a disorder, whether 

 the latter be proven to be due to another form of parasitism, or to disease arising from causes 

 altogether independent of entozoal infection. In the present epidemic, I believe the disease to 

 be entirely due to parasites." 



Dr. Cobbold points out that the presence of the Grouse-disease does not make the birds 

 unfit for the table — a most necessary remark, — although, after reading the elaborate and careful 

 details he gives of the disease, I should have as little appetite for a dish of Grouse as I have felt 

 for sausages after having heard one of his graphic lectures on the internal parasites of the human 

 body ; for I have generally left feeling that I was most unwillingly harbouring a small army of 

 these unpleasant lodgers. The learned doctor himself proved the above assertion as to the fitness 

 for culinary purposes of diseased Grouse, by partaking of portions of the diseased Grouse he had 

 previously dissected. He says that " both birds were eatable, there being no new or disagreeable 

 flavour attached to either," but that " one of them was comparatively dry and insipid." 



As yet no cure appears to have been found for this fell disease ; but should it in time become 

 better understood, it is probable that some means may be found to, at least, alleviate it, or prevent 

 its further spread ; for so severe has been the pestilence that some moors have been so decimated 

 as to render the shooting over them, for some seasons at least, almost out of the question. At 

 the commencement of the present season I was told by the poulterers in Leadenhall Market that 

 they had never known so short a supply of Grouse, caused, as they believed, solely by the 

 Grouse-disease. 



Mr. Seebohm, writing to me respecting the habits of the Grouse, says, speaking of the 

 diseased birds, that " they become thin and out of condition, and are frequently picked up dead. 

 This disease generally appears in spring, when the Grouse are sitting. The cause of it has given 

 rise to much controversy. The birds which have died of the disease are frequently found, when 

 dissected, to be infested with a small parasitic worm in the intestines. Some sportsmen maintain 

 that these parasites are the cause of the weakness and subsequent death of the Grouse. Others, 

 on the other hand, assert that the abundance of parasitic worms is only a symptom of, and caused 

 by, the diseased state of the bird. Grouse, in common with other animals, are subject to the 

 attacks of two species of parasitic worms. The long species does not appear to be particularly 

 injurious. So far as I have been able to learn, it attacks principally the young birds. It is not 

 an uncommon thing on the Sheffield moors to shoot fine plump young Grouse with four or five 



