164 
ON GROUSE DISEASE, ETC. 
mitted to gather some highly interesting facts. Thus, Mr. 
Stables is of opinion that when an outbreak of the epidemic 
takes place, it ■ follows a season in which the grouse have 
been unusually numerous and healthy/ and he supports this 
post hoc propter hoc principle by a reference to the fact that 
a remarkable quantity of sound game was obtained from the 
Cawdor Moors during the previous year. He adds:— f They 
showed well this year up to the time the young were begin¬ 
ning to fly, when, all at once, numbers of old birds were 
observed sickly/ and those which were found dead lay gene¬ 
rally ‘ along the edges of small burns—the number of dis¬ 
eased and dead birds increasing as the season advanced.’ 
“ In a paper which I read at the Dundee meeting of the 
British Association in 186T, and which was afterwards re¬ 
ported in The Field (for Sept. 17 of that year), I endeavoured 
to show that there was no good ground for asserting that the 
grouse disease of 1867 was due to the prevalence of tape¬ 
worms in these birds. To that opinion I still adhere; never¬ 
theless I am by no means prepared to deny that the disease 
of the present season may not be due to some form of para¬ 
sitism or helminthiasis. The following facts, at all events, 
are well worthy of consideration: 
ec On the day referred to I examined four birds sent by 
Dr. Millar, and, as Mr. Stables spoke only of three as f vic¬ 
tims of the mysterious disease/ I suppose one of the four was 
accounted healthy. Certainly the odd one was in fair con¬ 
dition, the other three being very thin—two of them reduced, 
in fact, to mere skeletons. I examined the skin, muscles, 
and blood of one of the birds with much care, whilst the in¬ 
testinal contents of all four were more or less completely 
searched. The evidences of pyaemia, with softening and dis¬ 
organisation of the lungs and liver, which were so much 
spoken of in connection with the outbreak of 1867, were 
here totally wanting. In this view it was, as well as for 
other purposes, that I subjected the blood and muscular 
tissue to microscopic scrutiny. The skins of all were beset 
with lice—the parasites being dead, and therefore readily 
dislodged by disturbing the feathers. Only one imperfect 
tapeworm was detected. In like manner I failed to obtain 
evidence of the existence of the ordinary Ascarides, which 
are usually rather common in these birds and their allies. 
“ But for one circumstance, I should have pronounced 
these grouse as remarkably free from entozoa. It would 
appear that they were all stuffed with minute nematodes of 
a species which I have not hitherto encountered in these 
birds, and which I believe to be altogether new and unde- 
