QUAIL PROPAGATION METHODS 19 



outbreaks of a disease among the ruffed grouse in this coun- 

 try, at long intervals, but nothing seems to be definitely 

 known of its nature or cause. By analogy it is supposable 

 that quails undergoing privation in severe winters might 

 have a spontaneous outbreak of the quail disease when re- 

 sistance of the system is weakened. As yet, however, I have 

 learned of no evidence of any outbreak of the epidemic of 

 the quail disease of captivity in the wild state. If, per- 

 chance, it does ever occur, it is evidently rare and not es- 

 pecially to be feared. 



Inviting Disease. It is easy to understand why, in the 

 past, shipments of quails from dealers have arrived dead 

 and dying from this infection. Trappers caught them, a 

 few at a time, and put them in small coops, in poultry 

 yards, or in pens repeatedly used and fouled. There they 

 were kept until a sufficient number for shipment were se- 

 cured. Like as not they were fed on coarse grain without 

 grit, which they could not properly digest. Then the fright 

 and close confinement in shipment, sometimes in fouled or 

 infected crates, did the rest. Quarantine has been pro- 

 posed, to make sure that the stock is not infected. But the 

 longer the delay in close confinement, the more likely they 

 are to become sick. Such a practice would hark back to 

 the discarded theory of a local disease organism. 



Practical Precautions. Since it is important that the 

 public should be able to purchase healthy breeding-stock 

 from dealers, with the minimum danger of disease and loss, 

 I will suggest some practical measures for safety. The 

 Government, in regulating this traffic, might issue a bulle- 

 tin of instruction as to the care, feeding, and handling of 

 birds, place this in the hands of the dealers, and make them 

 responsible for the carrying out of the instructions by their 

 agents who capture or buy up the birds. It is for the 



