286 



far as I know at present*") to all intents and purposes 

 outside any influence wielded by this article of food. 



At this juncture, therefore, it seems advisable to 

 recapitulate in somewhat precise terms the limits and 

 scope of the connection between egg and the disease 

 under notice, and the more so because on the part of 

 some aviculturists there appears to be considerable 

 difficult}^ in recognising what is the true position, and 

 in understanding what it really is that I have said on 

 this subject. For instance, by the exercise of what we 

 may perhaps regard as poetical license, I have been 

 made to say by one and another that septic fever 

 always follows when egg is given ; that abstinence 

 from egg means perfect immunity from septic disease ; 

 that egg food is the only cause of this ; and that egg 

 is dangerous because it is more readily infected by 

 septic bacilli than are most substances. To be obliged 

 to ascribe such absurd opinions to me in the face of 

 what has been advanced, argues but little for the 

 strength of the position taken up by my critics, 

 because what I have been trying to make quite plain 

 to my readers in the interests of both themselves and 

 their birds, and with a view of freeing them from 

 the mischievous consequences of archaic beliefs and 

 superstitions, is this : — tAa^ when infected — either before 

 or after ingestion — and when at the same time exposed to 

 the high teniperatiire peculiar to the avian organism, 

 egg food renders the descendants of the original iyifectijig 

 bacteria more than nsually active in throzving ont their 

 special toxins ; and that these toxins a7'e, in conseqjience oj 

 their special environment, more virulent and deadly than 

 those zuhich owe their origin to those bacteria ivhich are 

 covimonly met with outside the infltience of egg. 



The inevitable corollary from this is that many 

 of those birds, who with egg food succumb to the 



• I am here more particularly alluding- to swimming and wading 

 birds and poultry. 



