voluminous, and has sometimes been subject to such sudden bursts of activity that it was found well-nigh impossible to keep pace with it. To this cause must be ascribed occasional failures to acknowledge written communications by return of post, for which failures the Committee now tender their apology.
In the course of the investigation many technical questions arose which made it necessary to employ the services of leading scientific experts, and, owing to the difficulty in obtaining immediate and definite results, it was found that the period of the Inquiry would have to be extended beyond the three years originally fixed. The result has been that the Committee found it necessary to exceed their original estimates.
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.
What success the Committee have met with is due to several causes. Firstly, the work was, in the main, directed by small Sub-Committees who were unhampered by official restrictions and untrammelled by traditional red tape. Secondly, the Chairman and the Secretary had the cordial support not only of the other members of the Committee but of all those directly or indirectly interested in the Grouse. Thirdly, the members of the Scientific Staff" took the keenest interest in the problems they sought to solve, and were willing to place their knowledge, their spare time, and their technical skill at the disposal of the Committee unremunerated, or at best remunerated at an entirely inadequate scale. Fourthly, the Inquiry aroused a certain public spirit, which not only found expression in the willingness of sportsmen, landlords, keepers, and others to do all in their power to assist the work of the Committee, but led the printers, the firm which supplied the paper upon which the book is printed, the publishers and many others connected with the preparation of the volume, to grant the Committee the most favourable terms.
That this Inquiry did not cost more than the small sum of £4,366 in the six years over which the work extended (averaging £727 a year) is due to the causes set forth above, and to the constant vigilance and unselfish insistance on economy on the part of the Secretary. Compared with the cost of similar Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees this sum is a mere trifle, but it shows that satisfactory results can be attained at very small expense. Much money was of course saved by not printing the evidence given at the numerous examinations of gamekeepers
