20 



** has, as you say, an unpleasant cheesy smell which it 



*' ought not to have. It might not hurt coarse feeding 



'* birds, some of which will eat addled eggs with 



*' pleasure, and be none the worse for doing so ; but I 



*' would certainly not give it to delicate insectivorous 



" birds, and I believe it would be extremely dangerous 



" to feed Finches upon it, they being far more suscep- 



*' tible to septic poisoning than soft food eaters." 



As far as it goes this is a step in the right direction, 



and I congratulate Dr. Butler upon it. It indicates 



that he realises at last the existence of septic disease 



in both iiisectivorozis and seed eating birds, that egg 



does have some special influence on the disease, and 



that he has set the seal of his approval upon my 



application to the various classes of birds of the 



biological laws affecting the question of comparative 



immunities. I have before me at the moment a letter 



of his which appeared in the first number of the 



paper above mentioned, in which he states that none 



of his insectivorous birds had ever died of septic 



enteritis, implying, though not actually stating, a 



medical man as his authorit3% and also the " expert 



opinion " at the Natural History Museum ** at the hands 



of men who knew what they were about." I am not 



going to criticise any claims of the distinguished 



morphologists at the first Museum in the world to be 



considered pathologists, because they have none, and 



I am sure would be the very last to advance any : I 



merely wish to point out Dr. Butler's change of 



opinion and to compliment him on it. As the old 



Roman said. Nihil esi.qiwd lo7igi?iq7dtas temporis efficcrc 



no7i possit. 



W. Geo. Creswell. 



