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Frederick D. Welch—Injured Legs in Birds


INJURED LEGS IN BIRDS


By Frederick D. Welch.


Some people hold the opinion that injuries to legs of birds occur

only when in captivity. This is an erroneous view, because two wild

birds have, to my knowledge, injured themselves (not counting

immature Rooks falling from nests).


The first of these was an immature Green Woodpecker, which fell

out of a large forest tree near here on a windy day in 1918. Presumably

it was on the edge of the nest-hole and a gust of wind made its foothold

unsteady, for it fell to the ground when an acquaintance of mine was

passing, and when brought to me had a compound fracture in one foot.

The other case occurred in our garden in spring of 1921. Two Hedge

Accentors had a series of quarrels, extending over some days—

presumably two males quarrelling about a female in mating—several

of which took place on some wire netting round a fowl-run. Exactly

what occurred I cannot say, because it is -impossible to keep wild

birds under observation every minute of every day ; but one of them

got its leg damaged, very severely sprained even if not a fractured bone,

and was hobbling about on one leg only for two and a half weeks.

Probably it got the injured limb twisted owing to being caught in the

network somehow. The Woodpecker died twenty-four hours later; the

Accentor probably recovered, as it was not found dead. Two fractures

in foreign birds have both been in long-legged species, which would

seem to be more likely to be injured as result of slipping during running

than shorter-legged birds.


Of these, the case of the red-legged Cariama, which fractured its

leg on the ship voyage from Brazil, has been already mentioned by

Mr. Pocock (Avicultural Magazine, 1920, p. 191) ; but it seems worth

adding that the fracture healed well. When last seen by me in August,

1921, the bird had quite lost the limp which was markedly noticed up to

January previously ; and the only evidence of former injury as it stood

near its larger male companion was the thickened mass of new bone

around the ends of the fractured bones a few inches above the toes.

In that month it ran, to my knowledge, without difficulty. This result

does very great credit to those who attended to the after-treatment in



