Committee of Inquiry on Grouse Disease, Board of Agriculture and Fisheries

“ Owing to the necessity of having a constant supply of healthy Grouse for examination in every month of the year, to enable the Committee to collect accurate information on the question of feeding, moulting, and seasonal changes, arrangements were made by members of the Committee and certain local correspondents to send to the Field Observer each monthly of the year a certain number of freshly killed birds. Many hundreds of such birds have been examined, and from the material so obtained valuable, and in many cases new information was gained. ”

“ During the whole Inquiry the Committee has been greatly hampered in their labours by lack of funds. The total income has never amounted to £1,000 in any one year, and the work would have been in danger of coming to an end were it not that many members of the Scientific Staff have given their services gratuitously or for at most a nominal consideration. ”

“ Another factor that made for delay was that the Committee were not in a position to establish a central laboratory, and hence the actual investigations were carried on for a time in one place, and then after a break often of many weeks the threads were picked up in another. Much work was done at Cambridge, but at the London School of Tropical Medicine, at the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, at Frimley, at King's School in the Isle of Man, in the offices of the Field in London, in the gun-room at Beaufort, valuable investigations were also carried on. ”

“ The most important department of the research, so far at least as relates to mortality amongst adult Grouse, was the investigation of the life history of the strongyle threadworm. The work was rendered difficult owing to the small size of this parasite, but thanks to the efforts of Dr Wilson, Dr Shipley, and Dr Leiper, we are now in a position to speak with something approaching certainty on the subject. ”

“ Dr Wilson's personal qualities secured for him the willing assistance alike of Local Correspondents and Scientific Staff, and went far to ensure whatever success the Committee has achieved.
A. E. Shipley, M.A., Hon. D.Sc, F.R.S., Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Reader in Zoology in the University of Cambridge, undertook in June 1905 to assist the Committee in the Scientific Departments of their research, especially in connection with the investigations of the ectoparasites and endoparasites of Grouse. ”

“ The Committee consider that although their immediate object has been achieved, viz., the elucidation of the causes of "Grouse Disease," the present Inquiry has scarcely crossed the threshold of the investigation into the general pathology of birds, and there is still a large amount of work which might be profitably under- taken. ”

“ In addition to his services as Field Observer and Physiologist, Dr Wilson conducted a series of experiments on live Grouse at the Committee's Observation Area whereby the results obtained by Dr Leiper, Dr Shipley and others were put to the test ; these experiments entailed some years of hard and patient work, and required the closest co-operation with the other members of the Scientific Staff. ”

“ These gentlemen have worked at the subject for more than three years, and have not only ascertained the life cycle through which this worm passes, but have discovered the conditions which are favourable or prejudicial to its growth ”

“ He also got together and organised the three hundred and sixty local correspondents, he drew up all the various tables, forms, etc., with which these correspondents were supplied, received the answers to the questions asked, collated and tabulated not only these answers but the verbal replies given at the several examinations of gamekeepers and other experts, which from time to time the Committee held. His correspondence amounted to many thousands of letters. Further, he assisted the Field Observer in many ways, especially in the preparation of statistics and the arrangement of tabular matter. ”

“ The pamphlet called attention to the many theories which existed on the subject, and indicated the lines upon which the Committee proposed to carry out their investigation. This pamphlet was privately circulated among correspondents and subscribers, but was not offered for sale. ”