BOOK VIII. V. 18-22 



away. Care will also have to be taken that they are 19 

 kept moderately warm ; for they do not bear extreme 

 heat or cold. It is best that they should be kept shut 

 up in the hen-house with their mother and be given 

 full liberty to wander abroad only after forty days. 

 But in the first days of what may be called their in- 

 fancy they should be held in the hands and the little 

 feathers under their tails should be plucked from their 

 buttocks, lest they become befouled with dung and 

 grow hard and so block the natural passages. It often 20 

 happens, however, in spite of the precautions taken, 

 that the bowels have no exit ; a perforation is, there- 

 fore, made and a passage thus opened for the digested 

 food. 



Often too when the chickens have already grown 

 stronger they will have to avoid the fatal disease of 

 the pip, as also will their mothers. To prevent it, 

 we shall give them the purest possible water in the 

 cleanest possible vessels, and we shall also frequently 

 fumigate the hen-houses and keep them cleansed 

 from dung. Some people, if the pestilence persists, 21 

 moisten morsels of garlic with warm oil and insert 

 them in their throats. Others wet their mouths 

 with warm human urine and keep them closed until 

 the bitter taste of the urine forces them to expel 

 through their nostrils the nauseous matter produced 

 by the pip. The berry also, which the Greeks call 

 the " wild grape," is beneficial mixed with their food, 

 or else pounded up and given them in water to drink. 

 These remedies are given only to those who are suffer- 22 

 ing just to a slight degree ; if the pip surrounds the 

 eyes and the fowl now rejects its food, its cheeks are 

 cut with a lancet and all the diseased matter collected 

 under the eyes is pressed out, and then a little 



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VOL. II. N 



