12 
HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
Perhaps the most abundant of these germs are 
moulds due to damp, and especially the spores 
of aspergilbes fumigatus, discovered by M. Luret, 
which come from the abundance of all sorts of 
dirt found in some pountry houses; these spores 
attach themselves to the shell, and, during incu- 
bation, push their fatal filaments into the interior 
of the egg. 
From these facts one can take the following 
warnings : — 
1. — How important it is to select one's eggs, 
and, in the first place, to keep the hen 
houses, and in particular the nests for 
the laying hens, perfectly clean.* 
2. — That it is not enough to ascribe, as is so 
commonly done, the failure of a batch, 
and especially chicken diarrhoea, to 
immediate simple and direct causes, for 
example the eating of greenstuff. This 
frequent charge against the food 
rations is often quite unfounded. 
White diarrhoea often appears in incubator- 
hatched chickens which have been exposed to 
extremes of temperature during incubation, which 
indicates that diarrhoea is a common trouble with 
debilitated and sickly youngsters; being of micro- 
bic origin, white diarrhoea is thus infectious. 
Generally speaking, it is not the excess of 
greenstuff which causes the appearance of diar- 
rhoea in chickens and adult fowls, but much more 
a continuous deprivation of greenstuff, disusing 
them to green food, which is as a matter of fact 
valuable and essential to good health. In such 
a case the devouring of an abnormal amount up- 
sets the system after too long a deprivation of 
it. 
As a means of prevention it would be well to 
never omit greenstuff from the rations of poultry, 
and as good habits should be begun early, it is a 
good practice to educate the tastes of the small 
chickens in this direction. Later on they will 
raise objections; like those troublesome adult 
specimens which refuse, through daintiness, good 
food by which the lack of variety in their rations 
has caused them to lack the means of profiting, 
as their natural functions would have led them to 
profit by it were it not for faulty rearing.! 
*The production, selection, and the preserva- 
tion of the egg, and its retention in the environ- 
ment in which it developes its embryo, constitute 
one of the essential problems of aviculture. To 
this problem we have devoted a book which we 
shall be able shortly to announce. — P.H.M. 
tOur readers must have noticed that badly- 
brought-up dainty hens like this turn their chick- 
ens away from the best mashes because they 
themselves will only eat corn. — (Note in "Revue 
Avicole.") 
And after the appearance of the diarrhoea, 
greenstuff can even contribute to its cure; as is 
the case with nettle (small stinging-nettle, not 
white dead-nettle), the formic acid of which hin- 
ders fomentation, and the richness of which in 
mineral salts (potash and lime 14%) ought to en- 
courage its wider employment by thrifty breeders. 
But above all, the remedy recommended under 
these circumstances, and one which I venture to 
put before drugs, is vegetable charcoal in pow- 
der, mixed in small doses with the food, and es- 
pecially with boiled rice. 
The unjust accusation against greenstuff has 
given me the opportunity of calling attention to 
one of the qualities of the nettle. At a time when 
the ordinary foods are more than usually hard to 
come by it is particularly opportune to avail our- 
selves again of those supplies, so often despised 
or at any rate ignored, of which one might in 
France make so much use. 
In this connection the nettle calls for es- 
pecial notice. This plant, very abundant in some 
places, is a really valuable stand-by, since it 
grows spontaneously on the most uncultivated 
land. It is even used for human diet, cooked like 
spinach, and is also employed in soup. In this 
case it is the white dead. nettle. 
There is also the dead-nettle (Marsh Wound- 
wort) very common on the edges of ponds and 
in all damp spots. The tuberous rhizomes of this 
labiate, says an old author, containing as they do 
starch and other carbo-hydrates, have been util- 
ized, in times of dearth, for making flolr to mix 
with wheat-flour. They are collected between 
October and pril. The culture of the dead-nettle 
was advocated in England and tried at Grignon. 
The great nettle, rich in oils, was cultivated 
by the Egyptians who> used this oil. 
But it is as a forage plant that the nettle, 
this time the small nettle, ought to be more appre- 
ciated. A magazine, the "Vigne Portugaise," 
has advised its cultivation, and this advice is 
worth quoting : 
This plant has great resistance to extreme 
temperatures and grows on land unsuitable for 
other crops, provided that it is not subject to ex- 
cessive drought. 
It should be sown in August or September, 
in rows 12 to 16 centimetres (about 4 — 5 inches) 
apart. For an acre there is used 10 kilograms of 
seed mixed with sand, so as to ensure its more 
even distribution; it is covered up by harrowing. 
The cultivation calls for no trouble except, after 
a time, manuring every three years. 
The crop can be cut three times a year, before 
the stems harden. The plants when mown down 
should be left on the ground for some hours. 
When they wither, the stinging hairs lose their 
