" GROUSE DISEASE " STRONGYLOSIS 213 



indicating the eight or nine long villous ridges within, the 

 caecum of a diseased bird becomes a distended tube with over- 

 full and congested blood-vessels ramifying over it on the out- 

 side, standing out very often in conspicuous contrast with a 

 yellowish fatty-looking gut-wall ; or the whole substance of 

 the wall of the caecum may be congested to a deeper tone, 

 and may look dark, blue-black, and unhealthy. Before opening 

 the gut, the congestion of the mesenteric vessels is the most 

 conspicuous point. This is due to a venous congestion, and it 

 means that the liver and other abdominal viscera and the right 

 side of the heart are overfull. The liver may be very dark. 

 It decomposes rapidly, becoming of a black, tarry, soft and 

 very rotten consistency ; but this is not a safe indication of 

 disease. The difference in appearance between a healthy liver 

 during decomposition and a diseased liver is so uncertain that, 

 after a day or two of summer heat, it becomes impossible to 

 judge whether the bird was diseased or not. The right side 

 of the heart is often enormously distended with black blood 

 in a bird that has died of disease. This condition of the heart, 

 however, must not be taken as necessarily present whenever 

 the caecum is diseased. 



When the caeca of a large number of Grouse, all suffering 

 more or less from Strongylosis, are opened up and examined 

 in various stages of freshness, and in some cases after a lapse 

 of many days since death took place, the appearances are very 

 variable. 



In some birds the upper portions of the caeca are almost 

 transparent, but this transparency is certainly increased by the 

 post-mortem decay of the mucosa. The longitudinal ridges, 

 moreover, gradually diminish in breadth as the blind end is 

 approached. The thickenings so conspicuous in some birds 

 are far more abundant at and towards the open end. The 

 ridges are sometimes very obviously alternately large and small, 

 giving four broad and thick and four narrow and thin. 



In bad cases the villi are intensely congested, and in a certain 

 number of cases there is evidence of internal bleeding having 



