Loss of Precious 13irds The North Country is losing its
most precious birds as well as its most precious fish. Blackcock, treated with very short shrift by Forestry Commissioners, are now extremely rare and growing rarer year by year. This loss has been observed and lamented for--a good ma0 years ; but the disappearance of the grouse, the one bird quite peculiar to this Wand, is a more or less new catastrophe, greatly accentuated during the last twelve months. A number of 'comparatively small facts have been brought forward as at least a partial cause. Several sorts of gulls have recertly become more persistent bird-nesters. Vermin of most will have increased and semi-scientific methods of preservation decreased; but the loss of grouse has been more wide-spread and sudden than any• such changes can explain. A strange suggestion has been put forward—not editorially— in The Field, that the grouse, like the Scandinavian leinmings, are over- come at wide intervals by a suicidal rage for emigration. The grouse have flown out to sea and drowned themselves! Probably some less fantastic cause is at work ; and whatever it may be, a thorough scientific enquiry should be set afoot.
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