The epidemic diseases to which they are subject are more easily warded off by prophylactic than remedial measures. In bad cases, either of roup or gapes, it is, nine times out of ten, more humane as well as cheaper, to knock the poor little sufferer on the head at once, than to let it linger on to almost certain death. It is natural to try to do all we can, either for an old favourite, or for a valuable specimen; but even when we succeed in restoring the patient, it is usually only a temporary recovery; and it cannot be wise to keep such valetudinarians to become the parents of future broods.

The roup is an affection of the head, from which birds that are really attacked seldom recover, and when recovered, are still more rarely strong afterwards. It is the "pituita " of the Roman writers, which they characterise as "infestissima," most hostile to Poultry. A copious and offensive discharge flows from the nostrils, in bad cases from the eyes also; indeed, the whole head occasionally seems to suppurate. The creature is stupified by suffering, and blinded also by the disorder. All that can be done is to keep it in a warm dry place, to wash the head frequently with warm vinegar and water, to cram the bird with nourishing food when it cannot see to eat, and to protect it from the cruelties of other Fowls. Rue pills, and decoction of rue, as a tonic, have been administered with apparent benefit. Cleanliness, warmth, dryness, and good feeding, will, in a measure, keep off the evil, but we cannot expect entirely to eradicate it from a race of creatures so far removed from their native country as our Cocks and Hens are. Fowls are seldom affected by the roup before they are at least three quarters grown.

The gapes is an inflammation of the respiratory organs, causing Chickens to gasp for breath, and generally proving fatal. Various forms and degrees of inflammation of the lungs, accompanied by fever, are the great scourge of the young of gallinaceous birds. Some attribute the fever to their being overpowered by too much heat, but I cannot believe such to be the cause of the symptoms. "Some of

my Chickens about ten days old, have died lately of a sort of low fever, growing thinner and thinner in spite of the best attendance and most nourishing food. I cannot find out the cause, except their being too much exposed to the meridian sun, and have obviated it accordingly."-H. H. But a wetting in a sudden shower, a run through long grass before the dew is off, an insufficient or irregular supply of food and drink for a single day, are any of them sufficient to produce a similar disappointing result. With Chickens at a more advanced age, one very likely cause is the Hen being permitted to go to roost, leaving them to take care of themselves during weather that is too cold for them to do without the warmth of their mother, instead of her being confined with them all night in the coop. Or when the coop has been left abroad in a garden or on a lawn, I have known the family to be attacked by a rat or a weasel; the Hen has given the enemy a warm reception, and the little ones have escaped by squatting in strawberry-beds and behind box edgings, but they have all subsequently died from their night's exposure. If these points of mismanagement are carefully avoided, the malady will rarely make its appearance. Some cruel French experiments are on record, in which Chickens were purposely brought to an incurable state of inflammation, by subjecting them to these baneful influences.

In some cases the presence of parasitic worms in the air-passages is a further aggravation of the inflammatory symptoms. In the elaborate article on Bronchitis in the "Penny Cyclopædia," a figure is given of one of these annoying creatures. It is stated that in quadrupeds the bronchial tubes, and the windpipe, and often the larynx and the fauces, are filled with small worms, forming a kind of coat mixed with the mucus, or connected together in knots of various sizes. The disease is said to be either produced, or much aggravated by the presence of these worms, and the irritation which they produce. No notice, however, is taken of the worms which sometimes infest Fowls similarly affected.

Having never detected any such worms in Chickens that had died of the gapes, and believing that all the apparent symptoms were to be accounted for by inflammation caused by cold and wet, I began to doubt the existence of the parasites, and stated as much to a gentleman, who replied, "I wish to make you a little less sceptical about the fasciola. I used to think as you do, that it was merely inflammation, but a little dissection of the trachea soon showed me the worms adhering to the inner membrane of the windpipe. I have actually found as many as seven or eight in a single individual. If you wish to be convinced, cut off the neck of the next Chick that dies, the larger the better for investigation, and open the trachea gently with your penknife, and your doubts will be set at rest for ever. You are certainly right so far, that no Chick can be cured that is either very young, or very far gone in the disorder. But if not too young, and taken in time, the fasciola can easily be either brought up by the insertion of a wire or feather, or so loosened that the bird can cough them up. The inhalation of tobacco smoke, and other useless and uncertain modes, are ten times more distressing to the Chicken, and do not produce the desired effect.

"Those writers, too, are totally wrong who recommend the attempt to destroy fasciola by thrusting down a straw and oil into the windpipe. Pray do not try the method, as I have suffered enough by it; the straw being a bad thing in itself, and the oil, the smallest quantity of which stops respiration, and is therefore used by entomologists to kill insects, still worse. Several Chicks have died under my hands by it. But the proper and only successful way is, adroitly to put a small wire, or feather without any web, except at the farther end, down the windpipe. Give the wire a few turns, and the fasciola will come up at the end, or the bird will cough them up. This will, of

course, only do for Chicks not less than a fortnight or three weeks old; younger ones will not stand it, and must be left to their fate, unless turpentine will save them.

Smoking them in a watering-pot, after Montague's plan, is a doubtful remedy, and much more punishment to the birds.

"This season (1848) the fasciolæ have troubled me a little, and I have extracted some, but my hand is not in for it this year. The disease seems more a slight annoyance and hindrance to their growth, than the fatal sweeping pest it is sometimes. I thought I would try turpentine, and find it, as I expected, perfectly useless. As, however, the fasciola are sometimes too small to be brought up, turpentine might be of advantage to dip the end of the wire or feather before putting it down the trachea.

"I do not think fasciolæ are ever engendered by wet; but Chickens that have the disorder, in itself a weakening one, become very much affected by a degree of damp that would not otherwise have injured them. Fasciolæ have raged with me in the driest and hottest summers. You will observe in those I sent that each worm is furnished with a large round head, and mouth, like the head of a pin, by which to attach itself to the inner membrane of the trachea. A larger specimen than the one I sent (it is about an inch long) has not yet occurred to me; but I know not how large they may grow. My way of late years has been to confine the Hens very much in large coops, and move them to entirely fresh places every other day, when the Chicks forage for insects. There is one thing with regard to the number of Chickens asserted to be reared by the Chiswick hydro-incubator, which I cannot understand, viz., how so many young birds can be reared together without producing disease, and especially the fasciolæ or gapes. In my own experience (and in

some seasons we have killed one hundred and seventy for the table in the course of the year) I am generally obliged to move the broods from yards and houses to open fields, and if a place is selected where no Chicks have ever been reared, so much the better. How Cantelo manages I know not perhaps his establishment has not yet been many years in the same place. On a farm newly built,

and ground reclaimed, I would undertake to breed any number, as this overcrowding (which Mowbray called the 'taint') is the origin of nearly every disorder."-H. H. These are useful and practical remarks; but it will be only doing justice to the merits of turpentine, which is a powerful vermifuge, to give the report of another

case.

"I have not been unsuccessful-or rather, I should say, a deaf and dumb brother of mine-in raising Fowls this year (1847). My first two trips of Chicks had the gapes' very badly. I gave them a little spirit of turpentine in rice, and afterwards put a little salt in the water given to them, and saved sixteen out of twenty. To all the Chicks since hatched, I gave salt in their water, and I have about eighty without any sickness. The reason of success from this treatment is very clear. The 'gapes' are merely bronchitis. The worms are formed in the stomach (?), and, if you put an ounce of unslacked lime into eight ounces of water, and draw it off, adding to this some salt, and put about a table-spoonful in the water the Chicks drink, the insect is destroyed in the stomach with certainty; salt alone, regularly given, will have this effect. When the insect gets from the stomach into the windpipe, there is a difficulty. But spirits of turpentine are absorbed into the lungs, and the breath discharges part of the spirits through the windpipe, and thus also destroys the worm. The common works on the treatment of Chicks when ill of the 'gapes' are full of irrational matter, and perfect nonsense.”—T. F.

It may be observed that, if the worms do get from the stomach into the windpipe, it must be by travelling up the gullet, entering the mouth, and then passing down the windpipe; that though salt does destroy intestinal worms, it must be administered cautiously to Chickens, lest we poison the patient, as well as the parasites; and that the mere vapour of turpentine will have little effect upon worms that are deeply imbedded

in mucus.

R