84 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



But the most formidable disease from which 

 the young pheasant suffers, is that known by the 

 name of ' the gapes ' so termed from the fre- 

 quent gasping efforts of the bird to inhale a 

 mouthful of air. Chickens and turkeys are equally 

 liable to be affected by it, and it may be remarked 

 that a situation which has been used for many 

 successive seasons as a nursery ground is more 

 apt to be visited with this plague than one which 

 has only recently been so employed. Indeed, I 

 have observed that it seldom makes its appearance 

 on a lawn or meadow during the first season of 

 its occupation, and, therefore, where practicable, 

 it is most strongly to be recommended that fresh 

 ground should be applied to the purpose every 

 year, and when this cannot be done, that a quan- 

 tity of common salt should be thrown broadcast 

 over the surface of the earth, after the birds have 

 left it in the autumn. This scourge is not con- 

 fined to poultry-yards and aviaries. About the 

 latter end of June, 1848, I visited the pheasant 

 nursery of a friend, whose head-keeper is perhaps 

 one of the most intelligent of his calling, and 

 has had more than half a century of experience 

 in rearing tame pheasants. Nothing could ex- 

 ceed the beauty and the natural advantages of the 

 spot. It was in a large orchard, with a southern 

 aspect, near a garden well fenced and secure 



