88 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



operation could be performed on so tender a 

 subject as a young pheasant without of itself 

 causing death might be attended with happy 

 results. I have witnessed its failure even when 

 attempted by a master-hand, and that of many 

 other ingenious mechanical contrivances to effect 

 the same object. Hitherto, I am convinced that 

 no specific has been discovered, and that the 

 method recommended by Colonel Montagu is the 

 only one that promises a chance of success. This 

 is fumigation by tobacco-smoke, under the in- 

 fluence of which the poults should remain long 

 enough to ensure the death of the tracheal worm, 

 while its effects on themselves should not exceed 

 the limits of stupefaction. Here, in fact, is the 

 difficulty. The experiment should, if possible, 

 be tried at an early stage of the disease. I have 

 myself frequently performed it with success under 

 such circumstances, and have as often failed after 

 it had become firmly established, and when the 

 constitution of the birds had been weakened by 

 its ravages. Having said thus much on this 

 pheasant plague, I shall not allude to any of their 

 minor diseases, which, indeed, if taken collec- 

 tively, are not of a hundredth part of the im- 

 portance of ' the gapes ; ' but as I firmly believe 

 the tobacco-smoke cure to be the only one that 

 holds out a probability of success, and as much 



