Practical Game-Preserving. 102 



for and treated with sweet oil or vaseline outwardly 

 applied. 



Tapeworm is an affliction of fairly frequent occurrence 

 amongst pheasants which may be mentioned in passing. 

 The entrails of birds so suffering should be destroyed. 



Three species of tapeworm affect pheasants, and as 

 one of these species passes a portion of its existence 

 that of the larval state in the common fly, it may very 

 well occur that birds acquire the parasite from consuming 

 these insects. The necessity of keeping the rear ing - 

 grounds free from any refuse likely to attract flies is 

 therefore evident. Insufficiently or badly fed pheasants 

 have a habit of searching out any kind of dead animal 

 food possible to find, which fact will account, either 

 directly or indirectly, for a good deal of the tapeworm 

 occurring amongst them. 



Another occasional but fatal disease is a form of blind- 

 ness of enzootic nature. The contagion is usually acquired 

 from foster-hens brought from foul poultry-yards. 



This completes the long list of pheasant ailments, to 

 many of which other game-birds are subject ; but before 

 concluding it may prove advantageous to draw attention 

 once more to what is, after all, the chief cause of the 

 outbreak of most of them, viz., insanitary surroundings or 

 insanitary treatment. It will be seen that whilst the 

 originating poison producing some of the worst diseases is 

 known, the means of cure have not been established, and 

 that we are dependent mainly upon preventive measures 

 for avoiding them. These may be summed up as pure 

 soil, pure water, and pure surroundings ; but it is necessary 

 to point out that whilst we can with comparative immunity 

 rear almost excessive stocks of healthy birds, it is not 

 possible to maintain anything like such quantities all the 

 year round. Heavy stocks of birds left over during the 



