Sept. 1906.] 



251 



Live Stock-. 



The disease may spread to the angles of the mouth, nostrils, I'aee, and eyes 

 There may be a swelling at the base of the beak which, if pressed, causes discharge 

 from the nostrils. When the eyes become diseased there is a discharge, the eyelids 

 stick together and are swollen. If pulled open a serous or mucopurulent fluid escapes. 

 The eye may become ulcerated and completely destroyed. 



The intestines may become affected, when foetid diarrhoea, dullness and 

 stupor follow. The disease may assume an acute or chronic form, the former 

 killing in 5 or 10 days and the latter in several weeks. 



In acute cases the symptoms mentioned are present in a very aggravated 

 orm, and there is diarrhoea and collapse. In chronic cases the membranous growths 

 are present in the mouth, and there is gradual emaciation, anaemic diarrhoea and 

 death. 



(To be continue!.) 



POULTRY KEEPING : A PRACTICAL STUDY OP EGGS. 



Although eggs are a common article of food there is not a general knowledge 

 amongst poultrynien as to their formation. Thus the shell is composed of carbonate 

 of lime, phospate of lime, and animal gluten ; salts of lime causing the particles 

 to adhere. Soft eggs are either eggs without a shell, or the shell may be so thin 

 as to feel soft through the deficiency of salts of lime. It is a matter of surprise 

 where the hen finds all the lime necessary, for if she lays 150 normal-sized eggs 

 in the year, she will have produced two pounds of pure carbonate of lime. 



Hens are wonderful chalk makers. Mr. P. L. Simmonds, on this 

 subject in the Journal of the Society of Arts, says :— " If a farmer has a flock 

 of 100 hens, they produce in egg shells about 137 pounds of chalk annually, and 

 yet not a pound of the substance, or perhaps not even an ounce, may be found 

 on the farm. The materials for the manufacture are found in the food consumed, 

 and in sand, pebbles, brickdust, pieces of bone, etc., which hens and other birds 

 are continually picking from the earth. Their instinct is keen for these apparently 

 innutritions and refractory substances, and they are devoured with as eager a 

 relish as the cereal grains or insects." 



If hens are confined to barns or outbuildings, it is obvious that the egg- 

 producing machinery canuot be kept long in action, unless materials for the 

 shell are supplied in ample abundance. If fowls are confined in a room and fed 

 with any of the cereal grains, excluding all sand, dust or earthy matter, they 

 will go on for a time, and lay eggs, each one having a perfect shell made up of 

 the same calcareous elements, but only for a time. 



The shell is a " sieve." The shell is porous to such an extent that 

 when examined by a microscope it has quite a sieve-like appearance, and is 

 permeable by the air, otherwise the chicken could not live during the incubating 

 period. This porosity of the shell, although absolutely necessary when the eggs 

 are to be incubated, is detrimental when such have to be used as an article 

 of food, from the fact that by meaus of these minute perforations there is a 

 continual evaporation, so that from the time the eggs are laid until consumed 

 there is a wasting and deterioration of the contents, the extent of which is 

 dependent on the temperature and other conditions under which they are 

 kept, it being very well known that eggs deteriorate much quicker in summer 

 than in winter. 



Formation and Production of an Egg — Anyone, upon opening after death 

 the body of a hen, will find a cluster of eggs in formation much like a bunch 

 of grapes, and called the ovarium. These, however, are but rudimentary eggs, 



