INTRODUCTION. xiii 



which can only be cured if taken in hand at the very commencement of 

 the attack, and are much easier to prevent than to cure : exposure to a low 

 temperature, and insufficiently nutritious diet, are the exciting causes of this 

 complaint, for which the remedies are continuous warmth and appropriate 

 and nutritious food: many drugs and nostrums have been recommended, 

 but we have not faith in any of them. The symptoms of consumption are 

 gradual emaciation, distaste for food, shivering, listlessness, sometimes a 

 little cough, and in the latter stages diarrhsea: when the last complication 

 has set in the case is hopeless. Another complaint, often fatal with newly- 

 imported birds, is fever, generally of a typhoid character, which is almost 

 incurable: a bird so afflicted is inordinately thirsty, drinking as much, in 

 some cases, as a pint of water per diem. In slight attacks we have found 

 dilute, or aromatic sulphuric acid in the proportion of ten drops to the ounce 

 of water productive of benefit; the diet should be nutritious, — sponge-cake, 

 a little bread and milk, (which latter article is only admissible as a medicine, 

 or for very young subjects) and, where there is a tendency to dysentery, 

 that is to say blood-stained evacuations, mutton broth in which*' rice has 

 been cooked. 



Pneumonia, or inflammation of the lungs, and bronchitis are 'the result 

 of a chill from the bird having been placed in a draught, and differ from 

 each other rather in degree than in kind; the former being a clogging of 

 the minuter structures of the lungs by a sudden rush of blood from the 

 exterior to the interior of the body; and the latter, a similar affection of 

 the larger ramifications of the air passages, or bronchial tubes, which get 

 more or less lined and obstructed by mucus: great warmth is the only 

 cure, as we have already observed, but prevention is easy. 



Diarrhaea is generally caused by improper feeding, unless it is symptomatic 

 of consumption or fever; it is treated by a return to a natural diet, and 

 the addition of some powdered chalk to the drinking water, preceded by 

 a dose of castor oil. 



Feather eating is a veritable disease, and one, too, that is extremely 

 difficult to cure. Various remedial plans have been suggested, but some 

 cases defy every attempt, and the poor victims remain regular scarecrows 

 to the end of their days, which are generally prematurely ended by cold. 

 Occasionally turning the bird loose into a room fitted with perches and 

 logs of wood will effect a cure; or giving it a companion of its own or 

 a kindred species, though we have known the new arrival to catch the 

 complaint, and soon make itself as great an object as its companion. Fixing 



