176 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



clear pink, almost a whitish pink until the organ is cut into, 

 when it is found to exude bright red blood, and the cut surface 

 therefore immediately becomes bright red. 



The appearance of fresh lung in bad cases of Strongylosis 

 does not vary at all from the appearance of the lung in a 

 healthy bird, and there is no sign of solidification or of the 

 earlier stages of pneumonia, congestion, or infiltration in the 

 lung as a symptom of the disease. 



Pneumonia proper must be an exceedingly rare disease in 

 the Grouse, and probably ninety-nine out of every hundred 

 diagnoses of it are the result of a failure to realise that post- 

 mortem staining and infiltration give an appearance which may 

 be mistaken for pneumonia. It is exceedingly difficult to find 

 even a very small piece of this so-called pneumonic lung which 

 will not float in water, and this is a fairly reliable rough-and- 

 ready test for consolidation. 



With regard to the liver there is very little to be said. It is 

 an organ which changes perhaps more rapidly post-mortem than 

 any other, both in appearance and in consistence, and yet 

 more has been deduced from its post-mortem appearance than 

 from any of the more reliable indications of disease in Grouse. 

 If the liver be examined fresh, even from a bad case of Stron- 

 gylosis, it will be found to present a normally firm consistence 

 and a healthy red colour. It is true that it may, and probably 

 always will, partake of the general congestion which charac- 

 terises Strongylosis. But this alters its normal appearance 

 very little when it is fresh; it may be a darker red, and it 

 may be more friable, but the change is hardly noticeable. 

 The " black " and " tarry " livers may be ignored, unless they 

 occur in birds that have only quite recently died, as being 

 indications of no value from the diagnostic point of view. 

 Discoloration even in a fairly fresh liver will often be found 

 upon section to be very superficial and to be creeping towards 

 the centre from the surface of the interior. Hence the first 

 portion to show the change right through is always the edge 

 of the anterior lobes. 



