140 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



rearing. Tliey must be tliorouglily examined before the 

 hatching of the pheasants commences. The mouth and 

 throat particularly, the skin of the abdomen and chest, must 

 be healthy ; where there is a sign of cutaneous necrotic 

 disease, easily distinguishable as thick, dry, greyish-yellow, 

 friable deposits, the hen must be rejected. I know from 

 inquiry that nothing in the shape of a careful selection 

 actually occurs. Keepers take the hens wherever they can 

 get them ; they borrow them, buy them anywhere, or breed 

 them. Sometimes they have the disease amongst' their own 

 poultry stock ; but there is no attention paid to the healthy 

 condition of the hens selected for rearing purposes. Apart 

 from the losses amongst the pheasants by the disease, the 

 fact that this disease is not uncommon amongst fowls, causes, 

 in some farms, considerable losses amongst the poultry itself. 

 There is only one way of getting rid of the disease — that is, 

 stamping out. 



"^^ When once an animal — be it fowl or pheasant — shows 

 signs of the disease, it ought to be safely removed. When 

 in any field where pheasants are reared the disease has made 

 its appearance amongst the young birds, the hens ought to 

 be carefully inspected, and the diseased hens and diseased 

 pheasants removed. Those that are not affected ought to be 

 placed on new ground. A field where the disease has been 

 rife should not be used again for a year or two, and care 

 should be taken that some disinfection be undertaken — e.g., 

 quicklime scattered over the field. But I feel sure that, it at 

 the outset no diseased hen is admitted for the rearing, the 

 disease will not make its appearance amongst the pheasants ; 

 for the hens seem to me to be the prime cause.^' 



We are also indebted to Dr. Klein for the first accurate 

 description of a very fatal epidemic disease which attacks 

 fowls in overcrowded poultry-runs, and from them is apt to 

 extend to pheasant coverts. This disease is termed by Dr. 

 Klein ybw? enteritis, or the "Orpington disease,^' inasmuch as 

 " one well-known dealer had on his poultry farm, then at 



