218 POULTRY LOUSINESS IN THE HOUSE. 



his inquiry by asking ' Where's your hen-house?' The place 

 being pointed out, the door was no sooner opened than a 

 spectacle was disclosed to us which I shall not readily forget. 

 The accumulation of filth in the place, which had not to all 

 appearance been cleaned out for years, was only to be com- 

 pared in aspect and consistence to lumps of decayed cheese, 

 swarming with mites. (I trust this observation may not 

 prejudice the table, or prevent any gentleman indulging in 

 his fondness for cheese in that state : it has not at all inter- 

 fered with my partiality for mitey cheese.) This secret 

 being discovered, the nuisance was immediately removed, the 

 stable being well cleaned out, and the horses thus freed from 

 their annoying companions. The man who looked after the 

 horses now told us that he had been frequently annoyed by 

 the insect which he supposed to be a ' louse/ and that the 

 apprehension of being called ' lousy ' made him unwilling to 

 disclose the fact before. Since the above, I have not met with 

 more than two or three cases of the kind ; but be assured, 

 my first inquiry in each was, ' Where is your hen-house?' At 

 the remote period in which the above cases occurred, I was a 

 very young man in practice, and had very little time (how- 

 ever I might have been inclined) to dip deeply into philoso- 

 phical investigations. Had these cases occurred in the present 

 age of advanced scientific research, the affair would have 

 received a much more strict inquiry, and would, probably, 

 have revealed facts highly beneficial to our science. In 

 closing this narrative, let me whisper one word to my young 

 friends, ' Never turn a deaf ear to the observations of old 

 age! Had I done so, or considered it beneath me to attend 

 to what may at the time have been thought the impertinence 

 of a stupid old coachman, I might to this day have enjoyed 

 my ignorance, and would consequently have been unable to 

 avail myself of this opportunity of adding my testimony in 



