THIRTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT 141 
ease. They were removed to the hospital cages, where one died, 
the other making a good recovery without nervous symptoms 
remaining. 
Of all the diseases with which we have to contend, distemper 
is the most insidious, and the most fatal, and on account of the 
large number of species susceptible to this affection, every small 
mamma! which arrives at the Park is viewed with suspicion for 
two weeks or more. Distemper is universally prevalent through- 
out the country, and is rarely absent for any length of time from 
the channels of transportation and animal exchanges, and to 
make the problem of control all the more difficult it is impossible 
to determine the medium through which the infection reaches our 
animals. For these reasons great precautions are necessary. 
Bronchial Filaria and Rainey’s Corpuscles.—It is now several 
years since either of these conditions have been found in the 
animals of the elk herd. The health of this collection has never 
been so satisfactory as at the present time. The same is true 
of the red deer and Asiatic deer herds. 
Unusual Cause of Death.—An unusual cause of death was dis- 
covered in the female black leopard which died on September 10. 
At feeding time this animal and its cage mate quarreled over the 
pieces of meat which were thrown into the cage. The keeper 
reported that the male leopard fought for the meat which the 
female had in her mouth, chasing her through the passage to the 
outside cage, and he noticed that the male returned almost im- 
mediately with the meat in his mouth. After the keeper had fed 
the rest of the animals he took a piece of meat and proceeded te 
the outside cage to give it to the female leopard. Not finding he 
out there he investigated further, and finally found her in the 
sleeping box, dead. 
The autopsy which followed showed the cause of death to be a 
piece of beef, five inches long and three-fourths of an inch thick, 
firmly lodged in the upper part of the windpipe and larynx, which 
the animal in her haste to swallow drew into the windpipe and 
was unable to dislodge, thereby causing asphyxiation. 
Among the other unusual causes of deaths were the following: 
Sarcomatous growth attached to the spleen, weighing 834 pounds, 
in Eskimo dog “Bridge”; Traumatic peritonitis in an aoudad ; 
Pericarditis and cysticerci in a Baker’s roan antelope; generalized 
infection with Cysticerci in a chamois; septic metritis in a buffalo 
cow; and fovic gastro-enteritis in a guanaco. 
Injuries—There were a number of deaths as a result of un- 
avoidable accidents, among them a voung beatrix antelope, which 
suffered compound comminuted fractures of both fore legs and 
