l62 



recommend him and others three excellent publica- 

 tions treating of special subjects, which, although I 

 think all of them may be out of print, can be occasion- 

 alh^ obtained by one's bookseller through the Trade 

 journal. They are Klein's Grouse Disease (Macmillan), 

 Clarke's BtJ-d Plagiie (Fur and Feather Office), and 

 Theobald's Parasitic Diseases of Poulhy (Gurney and 

 Jackson). 



With regard to the probability of any early appear- 

 ance of a more or less all round and reliable Text 

 book on bird medicine — that I am afraid will have to 

 be waited for till pathologists generally have made up 

 their minds to study avian diseases, 7iot merely as a 

 branch of mavimalian pathology^ hit rather only by the 

 light of the latter. For instance if we wait till we find 

 pus in a bird before we diagnose Septicaemia, just 

 because Septicaemia in man is normally associated 

 with pus, we shall have to wait a long time. Pus is 

 rarel5% very rarely present in birds, while Septicaemia 

 is very common. Again, who in his wildest dreams 

 would expect to find in a man, that, as the result of an 

 old pneumonia, fully three fourths of his lung was of 

 of a stony hardness, cutting just like a piece of gristle 

 or a "hard" cancer? Yet I have found such extensive 

 fibroses of lung and liver (microscopically verified) in 

 Parrots and even in such birds as Bullfinches. More 

 than this, these birds had appeared to be in perfect 

 health and spirits right up to within a very few hours 

 before their death from another immediate cause 

 altogether. Mr. Gray hits the nail squarely on the 

 head when he speaks of the necessity for special work 

 on the part of those who would fain be regarded as 

 authorities on avian disease. And not onlv does this 



