BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



283 



ing. A letter from tlie baron's steward, dated September 7, 1879, testi- 

 fies that the treatment has fully suoceeded iu arresting, in a few days 

 even, the epidemic. 



We will conclude these suggestions by stating that it is alway bene- 

 ficial and even indispensable to disinfect the soil of the inclosures after 

 having transferred the young pheasants to a virgin soil. One of the 

 best means of destroying the eggs and embryos which may possibly ex- 

 ist on the soil of the contaminated inclosures, consists in sprinking it 

 with water containing in solution a sufficiently large quantity of salicylic 

 or sulphuric acid, one gram (15 J grains) to a liter (about 1 quart) for 

 example. 



Great care should also be taken to isolate the sick birds on the first 

 appearance of the symptoms of the disease, and to keep them closely 

 confined till complete and well-confirmed recovery. The cadavers of 

 dead birds must be buried deep, or it were even better to burn them. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



In the investigations which we have made concerning the develop- 

 ment of Syngamus trachealis, and which are reported in the preceding 

 memoir, written about twenty months ago, we pointed out that the eggs 

 ejected during the coughing fits hatch in the water, and that the em- 

 bryo, resembling an anguillula, may live in this medium for many months, 

 because we have kept some alive almost a year in a low temperature. 

 The birds are infected by drinking the water containing these embryos. 

 But how are they developed in the body of birds, and in what way do 

 they reach the trachea, where they are found, in the adult state, fixed 

 to the mucous membrane like leeches, the two sexes united in a perma- 

 nent manner and the females crowded with eggs? 



In the preceding memoir we stated that we had every reason to be- 

 lieve that the nymphal phase, unknown to us, was passed in the air-sacs 

 and bronchi, and that later on the worm reached the trachea where it 

 became adult. We offered as a proof of this hypothesis the discovery 

 of embryos of syngames, in every respect similar to those which we had 

 obtained from the hatching of ova, in the air- sacs of several young 

 pheasants killed by the gapes. 



There was, therefore, only a presumption, well founded, it is true, of 

 the existence of the nymphs in the bronchi of the pheasants. At pres- 

 ent it is no longer a presumption but a certainty. At the autopsies, 

 lately made, of two red partridges, killed by syngames, we met the 

 nymphal form in the pulmonary tissue itself, rolled up in the bronchial 

 dilatations. (Plate II, Fig. 11.) It is cylindrical, very elongated, about 

 1.6 to 2 mm . (.063 to .079 inch) long, and .04 mm . (.0016' inch) in diameter. 

 It is, consequently, ten times as large as the embryo when it leaves the 

 egg, and one-tenth as large as the adult worm at the period of its great- 

 est development. The armature of the mouth is already cupulate or 

 cup-shaped, but still without color, border, and lobes. The muscular 

 oesophagus is very long and cylindrical. The intestine, which extends 

 in a straight line from the termination of the oesophagus to the anus, 

 fills almost the entire body, and is already colored red ; near the an- 

 terior third of the body may be seen a fleshy thickening, which sends 

 a prolongation forward beyond the posterior extremity of the oesopha- 

 gus, and one, longer than the first, backward toward the caudal ex- 

 tremity. This is the rudiment of the sexual organ. 



