144 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



Other epidemic infectious diseases affect young pheasants, 

 carrying them off at times in large numbers. The most 

 important of these is one, the origin of which is generally 

 unsuspected amongst pheasant rearers, it arising from 

 the farmyard hens which are used as hatchers and foster- 

 mothers. 



Dr. Klein gave a very careful account of this disease in 

 the columns of the Field. He wrote as follows : 



" I had the opportunity of investigating the disease in one 

 of the eastern counties, where on one estate several hundreds 

 of young pheasants became affected and died. The symptoms 

 are these : The young birds, generally less than six weeks 

 old, show either at one or both of the angles of the mouth, on 

 one or both eyelids, on the feet, sometimes also on the 

 abdomen, some patches of various sizes and outlines, at first 

 red and slightly elevated or swollen, then becoming yellowish- 

 grey and dry and necrotic. When the eyelids are involved 

 (which is the case in a large percentage) the birds appear 

 blind, owing to the lids being more or less closed ; where the 

 feet are also affected (which in a large percentage is the case) 

 the birds are weak and slow in walking, they limp also. 

 When the mouth is affected they cannot feed, and therefore 

 waste and soon die ; the same result occurs when the eyelids 

 become closed by the disease. In the large majority of fatal 

 cases the affection involves one or both eyelids and the 

 mouth ; but in these cases also one or both legs show the 

 disease in numerous necrotic patches of the skin. The disease 

 is a cutaneous affection, and does not involve the deeper 

 parts ; on the legs the bones are unaltered, and there is 

 no distinct visceral disease anywhere to be discovered by the 

 naked eye inspection. Under the microscope in the earlier 

 stages, the true skin is much inflamed, its vessels much 

 congested, and the blood in them in stasis ; the tissue of the 

 skin is much infiltrated with inflammatory cells. Soon the 

 whole inflamed parts begin to break down into a necrotic 

 debris ; the area of necrosis gradually enlarges, but is always 



