16 



CIRCULAR 15, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



a pen, at the rate of 5 pounds of 

 the toxicant to an acre. Water 

 and a full diet of untreated food 

 were provided the birds. All veg- 

 etation in the pens was consumed 

 by the quail within two to three 

 days, and the birds showed no ill 

 effects or loss in weight when the 

 test terminated on the 10th day. 



These quail were then placed on 

 a diet that included 0.025 percent 

 of the same toxicant previously 

 sprayed in their respective hold- 

 ing pens. The 0.025 percent rep- 

 resented the quantity of DDT in 

 the diet that had previously been 

 found lethal for 50 percent of 

 young quail over a period of 2 

 months. All the feed mixtures 

 were readily accepted. 



The first signs of abnormal 

 behavior (extreme excitability) 

 among these quail were noted 

 among the DDT-fed birds on the 

 8th day. The first mortalities oc- 

 curred in the same group, when 3 

 individuals died on the 11th day. 

 On the 14th day a female on the 

 DDD diet was found dead, and a 

 second female from the same 

 group found moribund in the 

 morning of that day died during 

 the day without showing unusual 

 symptoms. No other mortalities 

 occurred among any of the test 

 groups until the 32d day, when a 

 female on the chlorinated cam- 

 phene diet died. This quail at the 

 beginning of the test period was 

 lighter in weight than the average 

 weight of the birds and may have 



had more than an average suscep- 

 tibility to the poison. On the 34th 

 day a male on the benzene hexa- 

 chloride diet died. No other 

 losses were recorded up to the 

 44th day when tests were termi- 

 nated. The total losses attributed 

 to poisoning by the insecticides 

 were: DDT-fed birds, 3 deaths; 

 DDD-fed birds, 2 deaths; ben- 

 zene-hexachloride-fed birds, 1 

 death ; and chlorinated-camphene- 

 fed birds, 1 death (questionable). 

 Weight records for the quail in 

 these tests showed no marked dif- 

 ferences, although DDT-fed birds, 

 which suffered the highest mor- 

 tality, also showed the least gain 

 in weight. 



Some of the toxicants used in 

 these tests may be stored in 

 body tissue, and so animals held 

 on a sublethal diet may accumu- 

 late considerable quantities of the 

 poison. Other studies have shown 

 that acute toxic symptoms may 

 appear when partial starvation 

 causes a utilization of fat reserves 

 and a release of the stored toxi- 

 cant. An attempt was made to 

 determine this point for the quail 

 given the diets just described. At 

 the conclusion of the feeding tests 

 all food was withheld for an in- 

 terval of two days. A quantity 

 of feed adequate for one day of 

 feeding was then provided each 

 group, and a second 2-day period 

 of starvation was imposed. This 

 treatment had no apparent effect 

 on any of the test groups. 



