Report on Liver Rot. 
199 
Mr. D. Colin Cameron, Tallisker, Skye, has a summer flock of 
about 8500, a winter stock of ()r)00. Ewes and wcdders are kept 
separate. The younger sheep are wintered partly on grass and 
partly on roots. The wedders are sold fat at three years old. 
Ewes are most frequent sufferers, and are attacked if grazed on 
land subject to floods. The symptoms usually show themselves 
in February, INIarch, and April. Very few recover, and those that 
do so partially are almost certain to be cut off in the subsequent 
winter. Mr. Cameron in a wet year has lost as many as 150. 
In 1879 he lost 45, but not quite so many in 1880. As to pre- 
vention, he considers salt useful ; has seen the cutting of a few 
open drains banish rot from a farm ; gives orders to his herds 
to shift the sheep every afternoon from the low to the upper 
grazings, and endeavours daily to secure them a change of 
pasture. 
Ireland has suffered from flukes for three years. In the 
Southern and Western counties considerable losses occurred in 
1878, a year before they happened in England. They continued 
in many localities during 1879, but have ceased in great part 
during the drier, more favourable season of 1880. Mainly to the 
devastations of rot may be ascribed the reduction, as compared 
with 1878—79, of nearly half a million, or about one-eighth of 
the total sheep stock of Ireland. Along the river-valleys, where 
summer floods were frequent, numerous farmers suffered heavily. 
In counties Cork and VVaterford I met many who had rotted all 
their flocks, and dared not purchase fresh sheep, which might 
share the same fate. The poor condition of many Irish flocks, 
their being neglected during winter, and their indifferent pro- 
vision of dry food, render them specially liable to succumb to 
attacks of rot. The small farmers are seldom sufficiently on 
the alert to sell off their failing flocks whilst still they might 
realize a little money. Thousands of carcasses were marketed 
in such a wretchedly impoverished state that they were con- 
demned as unfit for human food ; and Dr. Charles A. Camera?!, 
the courteous Inspector of Dublin, adds that many coming under 
his observation were scarcely worth transport to the Zoological 
Gardens or the kennels. 
Conclusion. — These doleful reports of disaster and loss amply 
attest the widespread prevalence of fluke disease, especially 
throughout the Midland, Western, and Southern counties of 
England. Since the cold dripping summer of 1879 upwards 
of 5,000,000 sheep have perished or been sacrificed at small 
figures, representing a loss which cannot be estimated at less 
than 10,000,000/. Cattle resist better the impoverishing effects of 
the parasite, but some hundreds of neglected beasts have actually 
died; and, infested with flukes, many thriftless thousands have 
