Corresponde?ice, Notes, etc. 79


THE INFLUENCE OF DIET ON THE AVIAN DEATH-RATE.



Sir,—I feel that for once I must break through the rule I have laid down

for myself of not discussing scientific matters with those who have not

studied them sufficiently to warrant their taking upon themselves the

role of critic. But since a letter appeared in our magazine last month over

Mr. Gill’s signature, and ascribing to me a position which I have never

taken up, and which indeed I should be deterred from taking up by ordinary

regard for my own reputation, I am perforce compelled to say something in

answer.


No one among my lay readers who has intelligently read the “ Story

of Bird-Death ” as far as it has gone, or even my short article in this

magazine, can for a moment believe the statement or implication that I

have ever said that egg is the only cause of septicaemia as occurring in cage

birds. No one who is an expert in bacteriological pathology (which is

alone recognised to-day in those cases which are either known or suspected

to be due to the action of micro-organisms), and who has read even one page

of any of my articles ( wherever the)' have appeared) would for a moment

realize that I could say such a ridiculous thing. Apart from numerous other

indications in Mr. Gill’s utterances from time to time, his very implication

that I have said such rubbish is a proof that he has never read with intelli¬

gent appreciation either my articles or those of any other writer on micro¬

organisms and their effects. Even supposing he had only had the opportu¬

nity of seeing my very short paper in the Avicultural Magazine i or Sept,

which by its own internal evidence can be seen by any unbiassed reader to

be referring to ordinary cage birds only, it is difficult to account for his

having written what he has. And when we consider that being a member

of the Foreign Bird Club Mr. Gill has had the opportunity of reading

month by month the “ Story of Bird-Death,” his statement that “we are

asked to accept as a fact that egg-food is positively dangerous as an article

of diet for birds, without the slightest explanatio?i as to how this conclusion

has been arrived at ” (the italics are mine), can only be palliated by the

assumption that his memory is so bad that he has already forgotten the

instalments that appeared in Bird Notes so short a time back as September

and October last.


Mr. Gill’s letter simply bristles with evidences of his entire inability

to grasp the salient points of my argument; for instance I have never

anywhere said that enteritis cannot be produced by any other means than

through the agency of egg-food; neither have I at any time ever given any

person the right to assume that “to refrain from the use of egg-food will

mean a “ perfect immunity ” from the disease. I have been particularly

careful not to convey any such absurd impressions in my articles, and to

invent and then father upon me such opinions can only be regarded as

outside the bounds of legitimate argument or criticism.



