i oi Pheasants. 



In any case, directly it makes an appearance dispense with 

 all egg-food, and substitute for what has been given a diet 

 purely of barley-meal of the finest grinding and quality, 

 or in bad cases of pure wheaten flour. This should be 

 made up into a crumbly state with the liquor in which lean 

 mutton (from which all fat has been removed) or rabbit 

 flesh has been well boiled. If this fail to act as desired, 

 a little rice water may be given. Scour of this kind must 

 be distinguished from another form which is set up by the 

 pheasant chicks consuming the leaves and seeds of the 

 Mountain Flax, which is in a state of growth attractive to 

 the birds from the middle of June to end of July. 



Liver disease, which is due alike to absence of grit in 

 the coverts a matter to which attention has already been 

 drawn and to excessive, or even on some soils ordinary, 

 feeding with maize, may be prevented and alleviated by 

 removing the cause. In cases where it makes its appear- 

 ance, plenty of fresh green stuff, such as lettuce, kale, or 

 cabbage, should be strewn about the coverts. Birds die 

 very speedily from liver disease once it takes hold of them. 



The tubercles which are apparent in the livers of some 

 dead pheasants are due to scrofula, a disease not often 

 met with nowadays, except where birds are severely 

 in-bred, or are the resulting produce of unhealthy parent 

 stock. 



Scurfy legs, from which pheasants suffer at times, is 

 almost invariably communicated to them in early life by 

 farmyard and other foster-hens already affected. If the 

 hens be treated as recommended in the chapter on Rearing 

 (vide p. 41), scurfy legs will not be in evidence. It is 

 due to a parasite, and is cured by an application of 

 carbolic ointment, followed by daily dressings of vaseline 

 and castor-oil in equal parts. 



The infantile condition of vent-binding must be looked 



