254 THE POULTRY-BOOK. 



from other animals. Another fluid, 'brought from the pancreaa 

 to the chyle-gut, completes the apparatus for digestion. 



The food now proceeds on to the small intestines. The sur- 

 face of these is lined with the mouths of numerous absorbents, 

 which perpetually open to take up the aliment prepared in the 

 stomach and chyle-gut. The refuse is passed to the rectum, to 

 be discharged from the body. 



- Fowls are also furnished with kidneys, for removing super- 

 fluous fluid from the blood. The kidneys lie in a hollow 

 beaide the back-bone, and the urine is carried from there in a 

 bluish-colored canal into the vent-gut, or rectum. It here 

 mixes, and is discharged with the dung. Fowls have no blad- 

 der, and it is, therefore, a criterion of health when the excre- 

 ment is moist. 



The diseases affecting the organs now described will be 

 considered in their order. 



I. DISEASES OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS. 

 I. THE PIP, OR GAPES. 



This is the most common disorder of poultry and all domes- 

 tic birds. It is especially the disease of young fowls, and is 

 most prevalent in the hottest months. It is not only trouble- 

 some, but frequently fatal. There is a great diversity of opin- 

 ion respecting its cause and its nature. Dr. Bechstein con- 

 siders it a catarrhal inflammation, which produces a thickening 

 of the membrane which lines the nostrils and the mouth, and 

 particularly the tongue. M. Buchoz, however, is of opinion 

 that it is caused by want of water, or by bad water. Others 

 describe the disease as commencing in the form of a vesicle on 

 the tip of the tongue, which occasions a thickened state of the 

 skin, by the absorption of its contents. 



* A writer in the Farmer'' s Cabinet says positively, that the 

 gapes in chickens is occasioned by \yorms in the windpipe ; 



