6i 



Zbc Storv) of BirJ)-2)eatb. 



By W. Gko. CRESWEr.r., M.D. Durh., L.R.C.P., F.Z.vS. 



(Continued jroin page ^g). 



* ¥ w VEN among birds of prey and scavenging birds 

 H there is found to be much diversity as to 

 ' * ^ power of resistance. The hawks and owls 

 which live on small animals and birds, and 

 often indeed on the larger insects, and which to the 

 best of my belief are very immune in a state of 

 nature, are by no means exempt when in captivity. 

 Mr. Bonhote, an enthusiastic keeper of those birds 

 for many years, tells me that occasionally he has lost 

 a specimen from an illness characterized by severe 

 diarrhoea, and some time ago he was good enough to 

 send me one which had so died. Owing to some 

 delay in the transmission this was unfortunately of no 

 use for any accurate examination, but shortly after- 

 wards he forwarded to me a Barn Owl, which though 

 still alive was evidently not far from death. This 

 bird, which was very emaciated, (shewing that it had 

 withstood its trouble for some time), I killed with 

 chloroform, and then examined with the usual anti- 

 septic, or rather aseptic precautions,^' making my 

 cover -glass preparations while the body was still 

 steaming. I found all the abdominal organs in a 

 state of active inflammation and to be swarming with 

 the bacillus of septicaemia. Learning that these birds 

 were being fed on fresh beef trimmings and rats, and 

 bearing in mind their habits when at liberty and that 

 they then necessarily often eat flesh tainted with septic 

 germs, I dismissed the beef from my mind as a 

 possible cause, and asked that a rat should be shot 

 some morning and despatched at once, so that I 

 might get it the same day. This was done, and I 



* With the view of preventing- any importation of micro-organisms 

 from without. 



