INTB ODTJCTION. 
xiii 
which can only be cured if taken in hand at the very commencement of 
the attack, and are much easier to prevent than to cure : exposure to a low 
temperature, and insufficiently nutritious diet, are the exciting causes of this 
complaint, for which the remedies are continuous warmth and appropriate 
and nutritious food: many drugs and nostrums have been recommended, 
but we have not faith in any of them. The symptoms of consumption are 
gradual emaciation, distaste for food, shivering, listlessness, sometimes a 
little cough, and in the latter stages diarrhma: when the last complication 
has set in the case is hopeless. Another complaint, often fatal with newly- 
imported birds, is fever, generally of a typhoid character, which is almost 
incurable: a bird so afflicted is inordinately thirsty, drinking as much, in 
some cases, as a pint of water per diem. In slight attacks we have found 
dilute, or aromatic sulphuric acid in the proportion of ten drops to the ounce 
of water productive of benefit; the diet should be nutritious, — sponge-cake, 
a little bread and milk, (which latter article is only admissible as a medicine, 
or for very young subjects) and, where there is a tendency to dysentery, 
that is to say blood-stained evacuations, mutton broth in which"! rice has 
been cooked. 
Pneumonia, or inflammation of the lungs, and bronchitis are the result 
of a chill from the bird having been placed in a draught, and differ from 
each other rather in degree than in kind; the former being a clogging of 
the minuter structures of the lungs by a sudden rush of blood from the 
exterior to the interior of the body; and the latter, a similar affection of 
the larger ramifications of the air passages, or bronchial tubes, which get 
more or less lined and obstructed by mucus: great warmth is the only 
cure, as we have already observed, but prevention is easy. 
Diarrhsea is generally caused by improper feeding, unless it is symptomatic 
of consumption or fever; it is treated by a return to a natural diet, and 
the addition of some powdered chalk to the drinking water, preceded by 
a dose of castor oil. 
Feather eating is a veritable disease, and one, too, that is extremely 
difficult to cure. Various remedial plans have been suggested, but some 
cases defy every attempt, and the poor victims remain regular scarecrows 
to the end of their days, which are generally prematurely ended by cold. 
Occasionally turning the bird loose into a room fitted with perches and 
logs of wood will effect a cure; or giving it a companion of its own or 
a kindred species, though we have known the new arrival to catch the 
complaint, and soon make itself as great an object as its companion. Fixing 
