ENLARGEMENT OF THE NECK IN LAMBS. 
431 
internal mucous coat was covered with blood. A part of the 
single colon, I found very much thickened, but I did not 
attribute it to the same cause. The rest of the viscera appeared 
to be healthy. 
ENLARGEMENT OF THE NECK IN LAMBS. 
[We have received a letter from a gentleman in a far distant 
country, requesting our advice with regard to a frequent and 
fatal disease among his sheep and lambs. To us the disease 
is new : we can guess a little what it is, but we have never 
seen it Will any of our readers, under whose observation it 
has fallen, oblige us and their brethren by telling us a little 
about it?— Y.]" 
“ This spring my South Down sheep looked somewhat ragged 
in their fleeces, but were in good condition until about six weeks 
before lambing, when, notwithstanding their excellent feed, they 
seemed to lose their flesh, as pregnant animals are apt to do. On 
the 20th of April I was enabled to turn them on a little grass. 
“ On the 25th my little flock (our correspondent is a farmer on 
a very large scale, but this was the first time that he had been 
enabled to try the South Downs. They had been drawn from the 
flock of Mr. Ellman, and exported by him) commenced lambing, 
and every lamb was deformed by an enlargement of the neck. 
It gasped once or twice— struggled a little, and then died, al- 
though perfectly and excellently developed in every other respect. 
In this way I lost twenty-three lambs — two only living a miser- 
able existence. 
“ The enlargement varies a little in position up and down the 
neck, and embraces the thorax more or less closely, and varies 
in size from that of a walnut to a hen’s egg : the lungs had evi- 
dently never passed any blood through them. 
“ I first thought that it was goitre ; but it did not correspond 
with the situation or appearance of that disease. I attributed it 
to something peculiar in the water ; but on communicating with 
other breeders, I found that flocks drinking the same water had, 
in two successive seasons, produced lambs with and without this 
defect ; and I also found that it had appeared where well-water 
and also where springs, and brooks, and swampy water had 
been used : but, with one exception only, I found that, in all cases 
in which this enlargement of the neck had taken place, the ewes 
had been grained (had corn given to them, Y.) and that, too, 
pretty highly. What to do with this one exception I do not 
