178 



inches of tapeworm hanging from them. The cause of the prevalence of these most injurious 

 parasites is probably insufficient or improper food. In early spring (i. e. during the breeding- 

 season) Grouse seem to require the young shoots of the heather as food to keep them in a healthy 

 condition. It sometimes happens that these young shoots or buds are nipped by a late frost, 

 which turns them all brown. It has been frequently observed that upon moors where such has 

 been the case the Grouse-disease has soon made its appearance. Upon some moors the Grouse- 

 disease has doubtless been caused by the young shoots of the heather having been eaten off by 

 sheep, so that there has not been sufficient left for the Grouse. On other moors the same result 

 has happened from an overstocking of the birds themselves. It is obviously of great importance 

 to the health of the birds that the moors should neither be overstocked with Grouse nor sheep. 

 The preserving of Grouse upon the moors is a more artificial arrangement than at first sight it 

 appears. It is true that we thin them pretty effectually during some months of the year, after 

 the 12th of August, when the chance of scarcity of food is over. Nature's Grouse-shooting, on 

 the other hand, begins some months earlier. Before the spring food has scarcely made its 

 appearance, she sends her migratory Hawks to the moors. Should any disease show itself 

 because the Grouse were too many for their food, the birds of prey would doubtless soon stamp 

 it out, removing at once cause and effect. 



" Some gamekeepers assert that Grouse-disease is an affection of the liver, caused by long- 

 continued cold and rainy weather in spring ; but the probability is that the seat of disease, where 

 such exists, is rather in the lungs. This year (1873) has been a bad year for Grouse on the 

 Sheffield moors. .Towards the end of May a great many dead birds were picked up in an 

 emaciated condition. Some of these were carefully dissected by Mr. B. Cartledge, a well-known 

 veterinary surgeon in the town. He pronounced the cause of death to be in all cases chronic 

 inflammation of the lungs. Many of them had the long tapeworm in the intestines; but he did 

 not detect the smaller parasitic worm." 



Respecting the variation in the weight of Grouse, Mr. E. R. Alston writes to me as follows : — 

 " Red Grouse vary much in their weight in different districts. They are usually heavier towards 

 the end of the season — a fact probably due to the reduction of the insensible perspiration (cf. 

 White's ' Selborne '). In the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire I have found the average weight in 

 August to be between twenty-one and twenty-two ounces, whereas in October it was over twenty- 

 three ounces. Males are much heavier than females. I have a note of an old cock killed in 

 November which weighed twenty-eight ounces, and a hen, shot the same time, twenty-four ounces." 



Eggs of the Grouse in my collection are undistinguishable from those of the Willow-Grouse 

 either in colour, shape, or size. Mr. Seebohm gives above so excellent a description of the eggs 

 of this species, that I need add nothing further on the subject, except that, as a rule, those of the 

 Red Grouse are rather the redder and darker of the two. 



The specimens figured and described are in the collection of Mr. F. Bond. 



In the preparation of the above article I have examined the following specimens : — 



E Mus. H. E. Dresser. 

 a,b,<3 . Clash na Darroch, Scotland, October 1867 (Elwes). c, $. Aboyne (J. Waters). 



