FAILURE OF FOWL-FARMS. 351 



A g-ood example of this is seen in the case of domestic 

 fowls. The attempt has been repeatedly made to 

 have a fowl farm, and rear large numbers of birds for the 

 market ; but the result has invariably been disappoint- 

 ment and loss ; because as soon as the ground becomes 

 contaminated by their wholesale assemblage, disease 

 breaks out and the birds die off in numbers. Game- 

 keepers in consequence, are so well aware of the 

 fatal results of contaminated land, that in pheasant 

 rearing, or in the rearing of any kind of bird in large 

 numbers, they make a point of removing the coops every 

 season to fresh grounds as far away as possible from the 

 place where the birds of the previous year were raised. 



Plagues among rabbits and hares, in the same way 

 are common. We remember being once asked to shoot 

 in a nobleman's demesne, where the rabbit shooting 

 was held to be excellent. On that year however, some 

 unknown disease had broken out among them and we 

 should be afraid to say, for fear of being held to have 

 exaggerated, how many dead and dying rabbits were 

 picked up by the beaters in the course of that shoot. 

 So again, in a gentleman's ancient park, full of hares, 

 we were present when a distemper had broken out there, 

 most fatal in its nature; many dozens of fine hares were 

 daily seen dead and dying, the latter invariably cast- 

 ing up a quantity of frothy matter from their mouths.* 

 We can have little doubt as to what was the matter: 

 it was a form of typhus fever of the hare the same 

 in the case of the rabbits. So with our dogs. We 

 all know the very fatal nature of what is popularly 

 known as "distemper" in the dog. Most of us have 

 lost valuable dogs that we were fond of, by it. 



* From notes taken at Hilton Park by the Author. 



