102 PRACTICAL PHEASANT REARING, 



thrushes, rooks, and thus administered to their young 

 a theory advanced by one of my correspondents 

 as also the inoculation of chickens with the disease 

 by means of the administration of earth worms in their 

 diet, is quite possible ; but I still maintain that the 

 ground is primarily responsible for the productions of 

 the disease, and that upon certain lands, which we 

 pheasant rearers must diligently search for, and when 

 found " mark with a white stone," the disease will 

 never appear ; that if the entozoa should be imported 

 to that land they will decay and die there ; and finally, 

 that that particular piece of land will act as an unfail- 

 ing " Pool of Siloam " for all and as many infected 

 coops that there may be room for upon its surface. 

 We are blessed here with one such " happy land" a 

 piece of old pasture upon which pheasants have been 

 reared with impunity for five years in succession, and 

 which we now keep as a hospital in case of the 

 arrival of a strong epidemic of gapes, which comes 

 not now, for the simple reason that my manager, with 

 the co-operation and assistance of a certain sporting 

 doctor, has discovered a mixture which, in liquid form, 

 is placed under and brushed over the ground covered 

 by the coops every night. The birds inhale the pro- 

 perties exuded by this preparation, and the gapes 

 are warded off or an incipient attack cured ; although, 

 when once the disease has got home, this remedy 

 is, I fear, as useless as any others of the so-called 

 " certainties." The recipe not being my own pro- 



