38 



liver and spleen were much enlarged, the latter organ 

 being indeed so enormous as to be doubled upon it- 

 self as the only condition upon which room could be 

 found for it in the abdominal cavity. (If it could have 

 been straightened out it would have been ij inch in 

 length.) It was thickly studded with cheesy deposits, 

 which were also present in great number on the in- 

 ternal surface of the sternum in connection with the 

 walls of the air sacs. The intestines and abdominal 

 air sacs (mesentery) gave evidence of old standing in- 

 flammation, being in places firmly bound down and 

 matted together ; and finally the bones of the skull 

 and the surface of the brain presented extravasations 

 of blood as evidence of the final and immediate cause 

 of death. Microscopical examination of the spleen, 

 liver, and the sternal deposits, shewed the typical 

 bacilli of septicaemia to be present in each. The lungs 

 were quite healthy, shewing that the difficulty of 

 breathing observed during life had been directly due 

 to the action of the blood poison on the nervous 

 system. 



A Song -Thrush belonging to a gentleman in 

 Kingston suffered from "some malignant growth in 

 " the mouth. The development of this growth was 

 "apparently the work of some few days only, yet it 

 "had the efilect of forcing out the tongue of the bird, 

 " so that it hung over the side of the bill. The growth 

 "was situated at the front of the lower mandible inside. 

 " The tongue too had been attacked, not by any growth 

 " however. On the contrary it had been eaten away, 

 " there being quite a hole in the fleshy part towards the 

 " base. . . ." This description, given by a very 

 observant layman, is so good as regards the physical 

 appearances presented that I reproduce it in spite of 

 the slight technical inaccuracies for which its writer 

 may under the circumstances be easily forgiven. On 

 examination the growths (for they were multiple) 



