35^ PESTILENCE AMONG THE ANIMAL CREATION. 



It is " typhus fever " of the dog. * It attacks them 

 in various ways, and produces symptoms varying 

 greatly in different cases. As we know by bitter expe- 

 rience, it does the same in the human subject; and in 

 case of recovery, in nearly all cases it confers that 

 immunity from second attacks, characteristic of zymotic f 

 disease both among man and throughout the brute 

 creation ; and we cannot doubt that the same law applies 

 to the bird that flies in the air, to the fish that swims 

 in the water, and to the insect that crawls upon the 

 ground did we only know it, and did human obser- 

 vation extend far enough to see it and prove it. 



These considerations may seem to some minds far 

 removed from the subject of wildfowl and wildfowl 

 shooting: but in reality this question of the periodical 

 outbreak of pestilence among winged fowl and the 

 lower orders of animated creatures, exercises a vast 

 influence upon bird life, and renders delicate birds 

 unequal to the strain placed upon their physical 

 powers in their migrations, and even in their search 

 for daily sustenance: with the certain consequence of 

 great mortality occurring among them, ostensibly due 

 to other causes such for instance as abnormally 

 severe weather, or a supposed scarcity, or failure of 

 their natural supplies of food ; whereas had the birds 

 been in vigorous health, it is probable that they would 

 have surmounted these trials without the sudden and 

 remarkable decreases in the numbers of certain species 

 which are periodically noticed by observant persons; 



* That " distemper" in dogs is typhus fever, is now generally admitted 

 by veterinary surgeons. See The Dog in Health and Disease , by 

 Stonehenge" (Editor of the Field) 3rd Edit., 1879, p. 423. 



j A term applied to diseases where there is' a specific poison in the 

 nature of a ferment from the Greek /ojco " to ferment. " 



