372 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



It is not known whether the chicks catch the disease from the 

 breath of already diseased birds, from foul feeding on excreta- 

 tainted ground, or from inoculation by means of fleas 

 or other vermin. Although these points could be set at rest 

 in a week when disease breaks out, it never has been done. 

 It seems more likely that, as in cramps, the disease bacillus is 

 present in soils suitable for it, and not in others, or else that 

 some soils favour the development of the diseases in the birds. 

 The only way known to avoid either of these diseases is to 

 avoid the ground on which they occur, but numbers of birds do 

 not create either disease. The perfect health usually found on 

 the game farms proves this. There they generally have as many 

 pheasants on 100 acres as sportsmen expect on 10,000 acres. 

 As with grouse, the greater the stocks the more healthy the 

 birds seem to be. 



Partridges are most attacked by a disease known as "the 

 gapes." Hand-reared birds can be dealt with more or less 

 successfully by means of fumigation. Carbolic acid crystals are 

 volatilised on a hot shovel within a closed coop containing the 

 affected birds. However, this is a clumsy way of dealing with 

 the matter, and the best plan is to move the birds that show 

 signs of being troubled with the disorder to the woods, where 

 they can get lots of insect food as it falls from the trees. This 

 applies to both partridges and pheasants. In the wild state the 

 former are most subjected to " gapes " when the weather is very 

 hot and dry. It is not known how the worm that is the cause 

 of the trouble gets into the air passages. 



There is a large number of other diseases to which game 

 birds are subject, but a preserver who can avoid those mentioned 

 need not trouble about the others. That is the reason they are 

 not mentioned in this work on Shooting. 



But an additional word may perhaps be said on grouse 

 disease. A Departmental Committee of Investigation has been 

 formed by the late President of the Board of Agriculture to 

 investigate the disease. One of its first acts was to issue 

 a pamphlet to correspondents to show what had already been 

 said and thought about the disease. None of these old faiths 



