Report on Liver-Rot. 
171 
fortunately followed by drier seasons, did not materially increase 
the prevalence of rot. With the sequence of wet seasons the 
flukes get more numerous and widespread, whilst the sheep 
become more weakly and liable to suffer. Although the flocks 
in the Vale of Belvoir are less numerous than in the winter oi 
1879-80, there is now more widespread and greater loss. There 
are probably double the number of rotten sheep in February 
1881 than there were twelve months previously. Many farmers 
are sufferers who last year escaped. The beasts are more gene- 
rally affected than they were twelve months ago. Many of last 
year's cases were more acute ; this winter they are more chronic, 
and accompanied by greater weakness and wasting. The ewes 
and older sheep, probably having to rough it more than the 
hoggs, contribute the greatest proportion of cases. Indeed, some 
of the old farmers until lately have not thought lambs liable to 
flukes. Mr. Littler has examined scores of lambs taken from 
ewes in the last stages of rot without finding a single fluke, any 
eggs, or any indication of disease in the liver. By embryotomy 
he has removed lambs from ewes in articulo mortis from rot, and 
known them to grow and thrive as if from the soundest dams. 
He discredits the idea that flukes can be conveyed to the progeny 
in the milk of the mother. On the grass and clover, as well as 
in the garden, Mr. Littler during the last two years has observed 
enormous numbers of the cream-coloured slug. The little hard 
black slugs, he states, are not so abundant, and are found on the 
arable more than on the grass-land. The grey slime these slugs 
leave on their trail, presumably sometimes contains the flukes in 
the cercarian form in which they enter the body of the sheep. 
In 1829, on three conterminous farms in Long Clawson, all the 
sheep died from rot. The flocks were replaced, and again swept 
away in 1830. Occasional losses have since occurred. One of 
the farms, and half of another, in the occupation of Mr. Samuel 
Doubleday, remain in their wet unimproved condition, and half 
the flock has perished from rot in 1879, and again in 1880. 
The third farm, and one half the second, were, however, care- 
fully drained five years ago four feet deep ; any damp or swampy 
places have been dried. The tenant. Dr. Doubleday, has 50 
ewes and 24 hoggs, and during these two recent fatal years has 
only lost five sheep, none of them from rot. Such facts surely 
demonstrate the importance of draining as a preventive of rot. 
Mr. William Cook, of Long Clawson, farms several hundred 
acres. Five acres on the lower part of the farm are frequently 
flooded, but the sheep are carefully kept out of this. The 
land generally is fairly drained, but neglected outfalls lower 
down on other people's property detract from the efficiency of 
the drainage. Last year Mr. Cook's losses consisted of a dozen 
