of feather. The normal healthy hen Grouse in August has already put off most of the broad-barred spring plumage feathers of her nesting dress, and is very much like the cock bird in appearance, with the same dark, red-brown vermiculate or fine-barred plumage underneath, white-flecked or not as the case may be, and with a mixture of old and new feathers above. The legs and feet of a forward hen are already showing quite a fair growth of white feathers, and the nails have all been shed. The claws are therefore short and rather soft, and the transverse sulcus or groove at the point of detachment is clearly marked. In the wings there may still be a number of primaries to be changed.
In the convalescent "piner," on the other hand, the case is often very different. She has still a most deplorably bleached and weathered breeding plumage on her, with worn-out feathers, frayed or ragged, often with saw-toothed edges, showing the unequal effect of wear and tear on the pale buff pigmented and black pigmented parts. The bird in this belated plumage has quite naked legs and feet and long unshed nails, or may at the most be just showing the points of a new growth of feathers through the skin; and in this state she is conspicuously shabby and ill to look upon in comparison with the splendid plumage recently acquired by her healthy sisters, and by the now almost universally healthy cocks. But the point above all others to be remembered in this connection is that this hen is convalescent, and still has a couple of months of good food and good weather, as a rule, in which to complete her convalescence before the winter comes.
If the spring outbreak of disease has been severe — that is, if the general conditions of the preceding winter and early spring months have been such Different
effect of
disease
in cocks
and hens. as to conduce to a heavy and widespread infection of the Grouse with the larval Trichostronqylus — then both cocks and hens will be equally infested. But the breeding season and the concomitant needs of the two sexes are, from April onwards, quite distinct from one another.
The result of this is that there is often a large mortality of cocks in April and in May, and a much less marked mortality of hens, probably in the proportion of seven or eight cocks to one hen, but definitely occurring in the same two months.
There is no great mortality from Strongylosis in any other months of the year and after May, the cocks are suddenly relieved and rapidly recover,
