154 PHEASANTS FOR COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



one or two small punctures of the skin at different parts of 

 the body the air would have escaped, and the bird in all 

 probability would have recovered ; but it was so distended 

 that it could not even feed itself, and the crop and intestines, 

 although perfectly healthy, were destitute of food. Such 

 cases are not very uncommon, but, as they usually arise from 

 accident, it is remarkable that in this case several should have 

 occurred amongst the birds in one locality. The cases are 

 usually perfectly isolated. 



It not infrequently happens that large numbers of young 

 pheasants die of mysterious ailments, the causes of which 

 are very difficult to determine. When they have been 

 ascertained, they have been occasionally traced to some 

 injurious substances taken as food. In one case that came 

 under my notice the destructive agent was sheep's wool. 

 A correspondent wrote, stating that during six weeks he lost 

 upwards of 300 young pheasants from no apparent cause, 

 but that subsequently he received a letter from his game- 

 keeper, who wrote : " I have found out the cause of the 

 pheasants dying. The farmer kept his sheep so long upon 

 that piece of ground before I had the use of it, that the 

 sheep lost a lot of wool, and my young birds have swallowed 

 it. I have opened forty or fifty young birds, and found the 

 gizzards quite full of wool, and the passage stopped up, so 

 that food could not pass. I send you four pieces of wool, 

 which I have taken from the gizzards of four different 

 birds. I never had a better lot of young birds. They 

 hatched off strong and well, and now I have lost nearly 

 all of them." 



It is probable that the sheep might have been dressed 

 with some arsenical or other poisonous " dip " or " wash," 

 which would remain on the wool and prove fatal to the young 

 birds. The arsenical solution known as " weed-killer " is 

 sometimes fatal to pheasants in pleasure grounds ; it kills 

 the worms and grubs that are near the surface of the paths, 

 and these are eaten by the pheasants with fatal effect. 



