160 
Report on Liver-Rot, 
sound. Jiy the end of January the Stallingboro' ewes began 
to show signs of rot. In the first week in February I had them 
examined again, drew out 70, had 15 sent to Wakefield, and 
55 killed at home. Finding them as full of flukes as possible, 
but not so apparently rotten as the Immingham ewes had 
been, as they only brought slaughtered 29^., and three-fourths 
had pairs of lambs in them, I determined to try the rest, and 
killed no more. We sent them back to turnips, giving them 
1 lb. of linseed cake, and as much cut barley in the straw as 
they could eat, along with salt, iron-salts, &c., as recommended 
by Professor Simonds. We never lost another ewe ; they 
brought first-rate lambs, and are alive to this day : thus show- 
ing that flukes need not kill them. I have come to the con- 
clusion, though we lost nearly 400, we need not have lost any, 
had we persevered with them." 
Mr. William Franldsh states that " fluke has done considerable 
damage in the neighbourhood of Ulceby, but cattle and horses 
are understood to have escaped. Many farmers here as else- 
where, by the death of one or two sheep or the slaughter of 
others, when they found that their flocks were infested with 
flukes, sold off what were fit for the butcher, but determined to 
take their chance with those which would have realised only ' a 
skin price,' put them on dry food, were particularly careful in 
management and feeding, carried many of the ewes through the 
trying periods of lambing and nursing, and saved hundreds of 
hoggs probably more or less infected with fluke." 
Berks and Oxon. — The valleys of the Thames and of its 
numerous tributaries, since the summer of 1879, have proved pro- 
lific nurseries for the development of flukes. From Richmond 
away beyond Oxford, and onwards amongst the higher reaches 
of the Isis, sheep, cattle, hares and rabbits have been infested. 
The tender water-logged meadows, owing to their wet cold 
state, are not only deteriorated for feeding purposes, but until 
a roasting summer occurs to dry the land and desti'oy the 
various phases of fluke-life, they will continue to rot rumi- 
nants grazed upon them. Their produce of coarse silt-befouled 
hay is moreover liable to convey the cercarian forms of the 
fluke to sound flocks. Around Slough, Henley-on-Thames, 
and Reading, great mortality from fluke has occurred. Large 
sacrifices were made of flocks in the autumn and winter 
of 1879 ; several relays from sound localities purchased to 
replace the earlier losses have since followed. Mr. J. Druce, 
of Eynsham, Oxford, referring to the Resolution of Council in 
May 1880, has reported that " very many flocks all through 
the Valley of the Thames, commencing at Abingdon, Berks, to 
Crickdale, Wilts, and on the tributary streams thereto — such as 
