Abstract
ALTHOUGH, as its name implies, the Grouse Disease Inquiry Committee was formed to investigate the nature and causes of the mortality which has been so prevalent of late years in the one species of game bird peculiar to the British Isles, it has accomplished a great deal more than this. For in the handsome volumes before us we have the life-history and organisation of the grouse, coupled with those of the various parasites by which it is infested, described in a manner never before attempted in the case of any other wild bird. This magnificent piece of work, it should be added, has been carried out from start to finish by private effort and enterprise; for although the committee was officially appointed by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in the spring of 1905, its funds have been entirely furnished by private subscriptions. The whole investigation is, indeed, a striking, and we believe, a unique example of what can be done by the combined efforts of sportsmen, gamekeepers, field-observers, and biological experts; and to Lord Lovat, the chairman, and all those who have worked with him are due the gratitude of naturalists and sportsmen, not only in the British Islands, but throughout the world.
The Grouse in Health and in Disease: being the Final Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Grouse Disease.
Two vols. Vol. i., pp. xxiii + 512. Vol. ii., appendices, pp. vii + 140 + 11 plates (41 maps). (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1911.) Price 2l. 2s. net.
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L., R. The Grouse in Health and in Disease: being the Final Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Grouse Disease . Nature 87, 544 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/087544a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/087544a0