DISEASES AND THEIR CURE. 105 



keeper who was lately inveighing in somewhat 

 unmeasured language to me against the use of these 

 particular remedies, ought to render the inventors 

 thereof " liable in every instance to six months hard, 

 without option. " This completes my analysis of the 

 powder cure for gapes. 



That I am not speaking off book may best be sup- 

 ported by the fact that, although led by former experi- 

 ence to thoroughly mistrust any absolute cure for well- 

 developed gapes, I have this season, 1887 solely for 

 the purpose of thorough investigation of the disease, 

 with a view to this dissertation thereon sacrificed a 

 certain number of coops containing nearly three hun- 

 dred young birds, by placing them upon ground pretty 

 certain to propagate the disease (in the result of 

 which amiable experiment there has not been the 

 slightest disappointment), and tried religiously every 

 advertised cure which we had any occasion to believe 

 offered any reasonabfe prospect of success, without 

 so far any satisfactory result. This " charnel house," 

 as well as the arsenal of alleviators, bellows, and other 

 mechanical adjuncts, also the laboratory of gape mix- 

 tures, gape cures, anti-gapes, and other paraphernalia 

 of which we have of necessity become the happy 

 possessors, I shall or my manager will in my absence 

 be delighted to show to any enthusiast who may be 

 passing this way, and to dilate further to him on the 

 subject. The result of these investigations is a 

 decided determination to return to our old principle 



