SECOND ANNUAL MEETING 63 



Unfortunately there has been no opportunity tor observing either the 

 rabbits or the birds in tlie field, and since the specimens at hand have 

 dried the writer fails to find the cause of the trouble, which, neverthe- 

 theless, seems to be attributable to some species of mite, possibly a 

 Harcopteft. Amonj^' poultry the disease known as "rough leg" or "scaly 

 leg-" is caused by the mite Sfircopirs ))iufaii>i, living- parasitically under the 

 scales of the forward part of the foot and metatarse known respectively 

 as the acropodium and acrotarsium. The result is a roug-hening- and 

 distention of the parts affected, and finally weakened vitality, g-eneral 

 debility, and even death of the fowl in extreme eases. In the case of 

 the domestic fowl it is a disease readily curable, but not so in the case 

 of the wild animals and birds, which possibly become instrumental in 

 the transmission of the mite, for, so far as the writer can see, the dis- 

 eases are identical. In anticipation of the evil resulting from the possi- 

 ble transmission of this disease from barnyard to barnyard by the 

 blackbirds to which the disease seems to be confined, the writer ventures 

 beyond his legitimate field of pursuit to urge upon some student the 

 recognition of this as a matter worthy of special investigation. 



INTERNAL PAEASITES OF NEBRASKA BIRDS 



HENRY B. WARD 



Repeated inquiries regarding the prevalence of internal parasites in 

 our birds and the significance of these forms for their hosts leads me 

 to present here a brief statement of our present knowledge on this 

 subject, together with short references to the work of past observers, 

 in the hope that this may lead to the accumulation of sufficient data 

 for a more complete handling of the topic at some future time. In the 

 historical review which opens the paper reference is made only to the 

 more recent writers and those in particular whose work bears on the 

 ecological side of the question. 



In that chapter of his work which is especially devoted to the Entozoa 

 of game birds and those of the common fowl Cobbold (69) says that the 

 epidemic of 1867 among- grouse in Great Britain was not due, as be- 

 lieved by many, to the prevalence of cestoid Entozoa. He tabulates 21 

 species which have been found in pheasant, grouse, partridge, quail and 

 barnyard fowl. Most of them are innocuous, a few harmful, and only 

 one, the gapworm (Sijiif/avius tracheaUs v. Sieb.), of serious import. He 

 refers to our lack of knowledge of the adults, our absolute ignorance 

 of their development, and concludes vsith the observation that in his 

 experience the forms are regularly very numerous, but cannot be satis- 

 factorily defined or identified. What he says is almost equally true 

 at the j)resent day and an unfortunate limitation on the study of this 



