156 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



its head in the mucous membrane, which becomes greatly 

 swollen, and, when the birds have got the disease badly, 

 the inside of the stomach assumes a rotten appearance : 

 the worms are quite white, but appear red from the in- 

 flamed state of the stomach. 



Whence has come this scourge ? Is it quite new to 

 the Ostrich, or has it hitherto existed in such small 

 numbers as not to have injuriously affected the bird? 

 We think it must be a new disease, or else it 

 would certainly have been noticed. When the Cattle 

 Diseases Commission, of which I was a member, sat in 

 1876, I wrote the following lines that will be found in 

 the report. How quickly the prophecy has come true ; — 

 ^^ The Commissioners cannot condemn too strongly the 

 overcrowding of birds in too small enclosures and about 

 the homestead, the ground becoming thereby tainted ; 

 and although for a few years the evil effects may not be 

 severely felt, the result must inevitably be the breaking- 

 out of diseases of an unforeseen character." The reader 

 must dismiss any ideas he has about worms being- 

 generated by the bird eating indigestible food, or any 

 other ideas he has that would entail the idea of spon- 

 taneous generation. This v»'orm, even as any other worm 

 or thing possessing animated life, was begotten by the 

 union of the two sexes, and was born into the world. 

 The two sexes may have been contained in the one 



