6o 



Zbc Storv) of Birt)-2)catb. 



By W. G. Creswei.1., M.D., F.Z.S. 



THE circumstances attendant upon and conducive 

 to the bills of mortality of our feathered friends 

 are generall}^ so little understood, that I propose 

 under the above title to incorporate in every 

 issue with my pos^ viorton reports on the birds sent to 

 me by my fellow members, either a short article on 

 some common disease, or the result of some experi- 

 ment undertaken by myself or my collaborateur, or 

 else an attempt at a logical generalization from the 

 many particulars at my command. 



My earnest hope is that my humble efforts in this 

 direction, representing as they do much labour and 

 time spent in laboratory and study, will ulti- 

 mately — though perhaps slowly — have the effect of 

 dissipating much of the quasi-knowledge and er- 

 roneous opinion now current on these subjects among 

 aviculturists, and which have either been handed 

 down by tradition from mediaeval and ancient times, 

 or have been promulgated more recently by those who 

 know but little, and in manj^ instances nothing, of 

 modern patholog3\ 



To a great extent I am afraid this general 

 haziness and ignorance is the fault of the medical and 

 veterinary professions themselves. Very few of the 

 more enlightened members of either of these bodies 

 have ever considered it worth their while to " bother 

 themselves" about birds, and so the result has 

 gradually come about that, while only here and there 

 can be found a competent professional adviser, the 

 great bulk of the work has fallen of necessity into the 

 hands of those who know very little indeed about 

 drugs, and nothing, or next to nothing at all, about 

 the bodies the\' pour them into. 



