46 
catheter used as a stomach-tube could only be introduced 
as far as the crop as demonstrated upon a dead parrot. 
The urine is evidently useless for diagnosis when we 
remember the anatomy of the avian excretory apparatus. 
Temperature determinations would require manipula- 
tions which the smaller birds could not stand. 
The droppings remain as our sole means of diagnosis. 
The ova are not easily found. The excreta of birds 
contain more waste than human dejecta where every- 
thing is generally in a finely granular condition. The 
droppings are laden with such quantities of vegetable 
cells, colored by chlorophyl that they quite hide the ova 
unless the latter are in such great numbers as not to be 
lost by high dilution. Efforts to dissolve this foreign 
matter have been ineffectual. It was not digested by 
pancreatin over night in incubator. Boiling with anti- 
formin was inefficient. This latter process, however, 
broke up the cloudy particles of the droppings, clarified 
the vegetable cells, dissolved the mucus and urates. 
Much of the chlorophyl was extracted. Our routine 
practice is now to boil droppings for five minutes in 10 
per cent. KOH, shake one minute, boil three minutes, 
centrifuge for one-half minute. Two portions of the 
sediment are examined for ova under the f lens, one 
from the surface and one from the bottom. The pre- 
paration of each specimen, examined in lots of ten, re- 
quires five minutes. The examination under the lens 
requires ten minutes where no ova are present. When 
present they are detected usually in less than one minute, 
although one case was found only after eight minutes. 
The total time for examining one bird is thus fifteen 
minutes. A mechanical stage is used and the entire wet 
specimen gone over. 
With a view to decreasing the amount of debris the 
birds have been starved for from twelve (in the case of 
smaller birds) to twenty-four hours (in the case of larger 
ones), and the droppings collected during the subsequent 
twelve hours. That this is a necessary procedure has 
been shown in subsequent examinations of these same 
