dissolved by rain or plowed under, taking care that none of it is 

 eaten by fowls. All poultry dying of the gapes should be 

 burned, and not left upon the ground, or even buried deep as 

 advised by some, for the eggs may hatch and the embryos be 

 taken by the earthworm to the surface to propagate the disease. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



Before closing, we wish carefully to examine a few points con- 

 cerning the life history of Syngamus and the propagation of the 

 gapes. First, do fowls contract the disease by picking up the 

 eggs, or mature Syngami containing them ? Dr. Megnin's par- 

 rot was claimed to have taken the disease from eating, on 

 August 7th, four mature Syngami filled with eggs. The first 

 symptoms of the gapes manifested themselves on August 28th, 

 twenty-one days after the feeding, and the bird died September 

 10th, on the thirteenth day of the disease. We believe if the 

 eggs were retained and hatched before they reached the proven- 

 triculus, the gapes would result. But we think such a case is 

 exceptional, and not the way in which the disease generally oc- 

 curs. In proof of this, we will not only bring forward the chick- 

 fed mature Syngami (see feeding exp. 11), but also the general 

 fact that chicks, about fourteen days after they take in the 

 embryos of Syngamus, have large quantities of mature eggs pass 

 through their intestines into the soil. According to Dr. Meg- 

 nin's theory, these eggs should hatch within the chick; it would 

 thus become self-infecting, and would almost necessarily die. 

 On the contrary, after chicks are a few weeks old they gener- 

 ally recover, their windpipes being large so that the usual num- 

 ber does not very materially interfere with their respiration. 

 That the eggs are not contained in the earthworm and thus 

 taken we believe is true, for in the examination of very many 

 infected earthworms during the past two years we have never 

 found an egg of Syngamus. It is also evident that the time re- 

 quired to produce the gapes by feeding earthworms is too short 

 for the eggs to hatch and the embryos to pass through their dif- 

 ferent stages. We consider it unnecessary to bring forward 



