THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
even thirty ounces. The average weight of healthy hen grouse at the 
same season is about twenty -two ounces, and some may weigh as much 
as twenty-six ounces. When suffering from disease the weight rapidly 
decreases, and males and females fall to about fourteen ounces, or even 
less, before they die. 
Diseases . — ^The Final Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Grouse 
Disease forms a vastly interesting and exhaustive monograph on the 
life -history of the red grouse, both in health and disease, and is a most 
complete and valuable work. It has now been ascertained by the Com- 
mittee that only two diseases giye rise to widespread mortality among 
grouse, viz., Cobbold’s Strongylosis^ the cause of the true “Grouse Disease ’’ 
among adult birds, and Coccidiosisy which proves so destructive to the 
chicks. 
The term “ grouse disease ’’ is a fallacious and too comprehensive 
expression, for it has now been definitely ascertained that grouse, like 
other birds, suffer and die from several diseases which have all been 
attributed by unscientific observers to one cause. The Committee have 
satisfied themselves that two diseases are responsible for the large per- 
centage of deaths among grouse, and that each is caused by an animal 
parasite. 
Dealing first with the principal enemy of the grouse, the nematode 
worm, Trichostrongylus pergracilis (Cobbold), the facts ascertained are 
briefly as follows : Nearly every grouse (at least ninety -five per cent) 
is more or less infested by these thread-like worms, which live in the 
paired caecal appendices or blind-guts; but as long as the bird is healthy, 
well fed and in high condition, these parasites do not increase in undue 
numbers, nor do they materially affect its health. When the stock on the 
moor is too heavy, i.e., when on a thoroughly well -burnt and well -cared - 
for moor, the food supply of young heather is insufficient to support the 
number of birds on the ground, the grouse fail to obtain sufficient nutri- 
ment, and, consequently, cannot maintain their proper standard of condi- 
tion. When in this somewhat impoverished state the balance of Nature 
is upset, and the parasitic “ strangles,’’ as Cobbold called them, almost 
always present in some numbers, get the upper hand. As has been already 
stated, they inhabit the paired caeca, which are unusually lengthy in the 
grouse and carry out such an active and important part in the digestive 
system. When the caeca become infested by abnormal numbers of these 
creatures (as many as ten thousand may be present in one grouse), the 
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