RED GROUSE. 
9 
to be conducive to the well-being of the species, and succeed in keeping their birds in health for a time 
(which I believe is possible), there are certain contingencies that no human foresight can avert. On many 
portions of the hill-sides frosts and the cutting east winds of early spring will occasionally blight the 
young heather-shoots that form the chief nourishment of the birds, and rendering their food indigestible 
lay the foundation of a disease which, though at first only attacking those exposed to the same influences 
{i. e. typhoid in character), eventually becomes epidemic and spreads far and wide. A keeper, who had 
acquired his experience during many years’ service in the west of Perthshire, informed me that he had noticed 
the disease was most deadly on the moors facizag towards the south, and consequently more exposed 
to the rays of the sun than on the shaded ground on the northern slopes. Judging from personal observation, 
I was led to believe that the old cocks were the earliest sufferers, their dead bodies being the first seen 
on two occasions when the disease made its appearance. Thirst is doubtless one of the symptoms of the 
malady ; I met with both weather-beaten skeletons and decomposing carcasses lying thickly round the 
loch-sides, and also by the burns running through the flat moors of Sutherland and Caithness, in the 
summer of 18G9. Various opinions as to the origin of disease have from time to time appeared in print : a 
too liberal diet of corn obtained from the stocks in autumn has been supposed prejudicial; the wash 
applied to sheep as well as worms from the animals themselves have been considered to affect the internal 
organs; and the infatuated birds are, moreover, declared to have attempted to emulate the powers of the 
Ostrich and subsist on the unlimited stores of shot scattered over the moors. It has frequently been 
remarked that a cai-cless and irregular system of burning the heather, carried out regardless of consequences, 
with an insufficient staff of keepers and shepherds to conduct the operations and guard against the undue 
spread of the flames, deprives the birds of the most tender and wholesome portion of their food as well as the 
adjacent^ shelter necessary for their safety, rendering them more liable to disease and exposed to the attacks 
of vermin. Though overfeeding on grain is by no means conducive to health, disease often proves most 
virulent m localities where it is utterly impossible for the birds to have made their way to cornfields • I 
have seen them lying dead in scores on the moors around the shores of Loch Slatel, on the borders of Sutherland 
and Caithness. Its ravages may also be traced in glens where only small patches of land adioiuino- the 
riyer-sides are fit for cultivation, and to which the birds seldom if ever descend to feed on the -rain either 
when m stook or scattered over the fields. In a recently published work on ‘Grouse D^isease’ the 
ollowing quotation appears My opinion is that corn is a very unwholesome food for Grouse Let 
any person examine the droppings of Grouse when fed on corn, and they will find them similar to tar but 
ra er novner m colour. It is doubtless a fact that corn is not so suitable as their natural food • the 
dioppmgs, however, referred to (which are of a reddish^no^^■n tint and slimy in texture) are by no means 
uncommon on the moors and cannot be relied upon as a proof that the birds have been feedin- on corn 
n September 1867, while excavating for the foundation of an underground shealing* on^he summit 
of Balnloan, a hill some 3000 feet in heiglit, lying between Glenlyon and Rannoch, a Grouse e- apparentlv 
pctiificd, vas discovered at the depth of seven or eight feet below the surface- onl ^ 
brilliant and perfect, and the weight nearly, if not quite, double that of an ordinal-y 
placed on an open stretch of green turf well within view and shot from the interior, and a 
an attraction to the spot for birds of prey. Through the window, formed by a gap in the rocks theTr mo \ T 
or struggling over their savoury banquet could be easUy watched and noted down anv raritie- id 'f a 7 "='>“tentions while consuming 
The door to the passage (carefully concealed by heather and stones) being out’of sight of the b’ 't ^ being weU within range, 
without giving the slightest warning to any bird or beast feasting on the oLl “ ’ “ " ‘'‘«'®«ted 
