DISEASES OF GAME BIRDS 375 



On the same page the Field says : " Partridges were 

 practically exempt from pneumo-enteritis as long as they 

 were allowed to breed naturally, but overcrowded on foul 

 ground they will become as subject to it as pheasants." And 

 on page 592, in reference to pheasants it is said, "The birds 

 died from very severe pneumo-enteritis." On September 22nd, 

 P a ge 53 T Mr. Tegetmeier has an article in which he seeks 

 every means of discovering why foster-mothers have died of the 

 disease and the pheasants have not died. Consequently, it is 

 evident that the journal treats this disease as one and the same 

 in all species of gallinaceous birds. But Dr. Klein said at 

 page 38 of his book on grouse disease, " In pigeons and fowls 

 the subcutaneous inoculation is not followed by any, not even 

 a local, positive result ; the animals remained lively and well." 

 In fact, Dr. Klein failed to give the disease he had discovered 

 to fowls or any gallinaceous birds whatever, but he said, " The 

 most striking results were obtained on the common bunting 

 and the yellow-hammer, for the injection of a small drop of the 

 broth culture into the leg is followed by fatal results." 



Obviously, if the Field is right now, Dr. Klein did not 

 discover the grouse disease bacillus. And if he did discover 

 it, any fowls dead from or sick with disease may at once be 

 regarded as victims of something else ; and other gallinaceous 

 birds must be suspected in consequence of being refractory to 

 the grouse disease. 



The author's belief is that Dr. Klein did discover the 

 bacillus, although he failed to prove it, and that his experiments 

 on buntings, fowls, and other creatures went to suggest that 

 the grouse is not a natural host of the bacilli, that it or its 

 virus becomes attenuated or weakened every time it passes 

 through a grouse, but that, on the contrary, it becomes more 

 virulent in passing through buntings and yellow-hammers. 

 This was suggested by the weakness of the virulence from the 

 bacilli cultivated from the diseased autumnal grouse after a 

 severer spring outbreak, and it is also suggested by the fact 

 that in such cases the grouse do not die rapidly, and that it is 

 a slow disease from which perhaps some grouse recover ; whereas 



