DEPLUMING SCABIES. Ab 



be allayed with sweet-oil well rubbed into the leg 

 some little time after. 



In every case the diseased part should be well 

 cleaned with hot water and soft soap some few days 

 after treatment. 



If taken in time recovery is very rapid, but if 

 allowed to work well into the leg this Scabies is not 

 readily remedied. 



Depluming Scabies (Feather-eating). 



The annoying and so-called ' vicious ' habit of some 

 birds of plucking out their own and other birds' 

 feathers is usually attributed to pure mischief on the 

 part of the birds : such, however, is not always the case. 

 Railliet discovered some years ago (1886) scabies 

 of the fowl's bodv in a poultry-yard in Normandy. 

 Since then many fresh areas have been found affected 

 with this Acariasis. It has not, I fancy, been paid 

 much attention to in England, and the general idea 

 still is that the feather-pulling or, as it is called, 

 eating is due to some vicious habit, whereas it is really 

 due in most cases to a minute Sarcopt mite, known 

 as Sarcoptes Icevis (fig. 15). Idleness, thirst, &c, and 

 other absurd theories have been put forward to 

 account for this habit, without any examination of 

 the bird, 



Alost of the cases examined by the author have 

 been in pigeons, but those fowls reported suffered in 

 a similar way and from a similar cause. According 

 to Railliet, however, the mite on the pigeon is slightly 



