H5 



which appear in the fanciers' journals. Here are a 

 few recent ones from a copy of "Cage Birds": 



1. "Your bird died of cancer of the spleen, 

 " was also tuberculous (consumptive) in lungs, liver, 

 "and bowels." This is curious; "the boy" has 

 always mistaken septic fever for tuberculosis, but I 

 have not noticed cancer before in the same connexion. 

 Septic fever is the most characteristic and one of the 

 commonest of the complaints which attack cage birds. 

 An acute disease, often epidemic, lasting as a rule 

 from a few days to a fortnight, and characterised b\^ 

 tubercles or caseous nodules in the spleen, liver, 

 lungs, intestines, and tongue. Even the man in the 

 street, if he can recognise these simple signs, may be 

 satisfied the bird has died of this disease. It has 

 never been proved that cage birds suffer from tuber- 

 culosis, or that they are capable of infection with 

 human tuberculosis in any way. It is true that the}^ 

 suffer from a disease attended by the presence of 

 bacilli which resemble tubercle bacilli in some but 

 not all respects, but whether this is what is called 

 avian tuberculosis, and whether avian tuberculosis is 

 the same disease as human tuberculosis, are questions 

 which have j^et to be decided. But one thing at any 

 rate is certain, that, whatever this disease proves to be, 

 whether it is a form of tuberculosis or not, it has 

 neither the course nor the symptoms of septic fever, 

 and there is no excuse for confounding them. 



2. " Your bird died of rupture of big blood 

 " vessel consequent on contagious tuberculosis or 

 "'bird fever' or ' Canary plague,' sometimes called 

 " ' splenic apoplexy.' " Heavens, what an assortment ! 

 It is as if one had called in an expert to give the 

 name to a particular flower, and he had reported that 

 it was a rose, or a carnation, or a daisy, sometimes 

 called a buttercup. Splenic fever is the common name 

 for anthrax, which is just as distinct from tuberculosis 



