C. L. Walton 
215 
frequently it is by no means easy to find a really dry place for calves, 
an unusually high tide caused much of the land to be flooded with 
brackish water; and there has since been a marked diminution in the 
amount of husk. In another instance turning the calves into a field 
regularly “salted” thus, results in a cure. One farmer, the whole of 
whose small farm is very damp, keeps his calves on the shortest grass 
available. Calves sent from a dry farm to a damp common in Aug. 
1915 became very badly infected. 
It may not be out of place to state here that all my observations go 
to prove that Commons are great breeding grounds for parasites, and 
are centres of infection wherever they exist. I have traced “husk” 
and “red water” to one common within the Area, and fiver rot to three 
others, one within, and two others just without the boundaries. The 
same thing applied to other parts of England and Wales. 
These Commons are not drained, the weeds are not cut; the ponds 
and ditches are not cleaned out, everything is grazed off them and nothing 
returned, and they become poor, sour and foul; ideal centres for the 
maintenance and distribution of pests of all kinds: and it is greatly 
to be hoped that the future will see some efficient control of commons. 
Local husk remedies commonly in use are: sulphur and milk, tar and 
turpentine; balls compounded of linseed; turpentine and tar, or a tar 
ball dipped in turpentine. 
Syngas us trachea us Siebold. 
The Gape Worm is a serious chicken pest on a number of farms, 
often causing heavy mortality in April, and even as early as March, is 
by no means a general pest and is of quite local occurrence. Forty to 
sixty chicks have died in some instances that came under my notice; 
a loss by no means easy to replace. In several instances the removal 
of the rearing pens to fresh ground has been completely successful; no 
further cases occurring. 
Experiments in painting the trachea in badly infected chicks with 
varying strengths of alcohol, dilute formalin, etc., were not successful. 
A number of fumigants, powders, etc., have been tried locally with 
varying results, but the disease is best combated by clean ground and 
disinfection. 
Several people within the Area are expert at extracting the worms 
by means of a feather. 
