Correspondence



GAPEWORMS IN STARLINGS



291



People who keep tropical Starlings are sometimes troubled by

a mysterious and fatal disease which attacks these birds. They start

.sneezing, and although they feed well and live a long time they usually

die at the finish. I have for some time suspected gapes to be the cause,

although friends with more experience of Starlings than I have not

agreed with the diagnosis, it being often difficult to see how the birds

could have been infected. The other day a correspondent wrote to me

for advice about a Royal Starling which exhibited the characteristic

symptoms. I urged a post mortem if' the bird succumbed, as it did, and

sure enough it proved to be heavily infected with gapeworms.


Tavistock.


[The common Starling is also frequently infected with gapeworms

(-Syngamus ), and is a common source of infection in other birds such

us game birds and poultry. The remedy, first recommended by

Mr. Workman, and found so successful by Mr. Ezra, should be tried by

all who suspect gapes in young or adult captive birds. —Ed.]



THE ZOO “ LIST OF ANIMALS ” : AN ERROR RE THE


COMBASOU


It should be of interest (to aviculturists, at any rate) to draw

.attention to a slip in the Zoo List of Birds (1929). 1 This is the omission

of the Combasous (Hypochera) , somewhere about p. 49, and the inclusion

instead of Malimbus nitens on p. 74.


Combasous are always with us ; the common one, chalybeata (late

nitens) can nearly always be seen in the Bird House small seed-eaters’

aviary ; and the Zoo have also had the South African and Eastern

races, ultramarina and amauorpteryx, and perhaps others. Malimbus ,

on the other hand, I cannot believe they have had, for it is a forest-

haunting, insect-eating Weaver from Cameroon and other parts of


1 List of the Vertebrated Animals exhibited in the Gardens of the Zoological

Society of London 1828 - 1927 , Yol. II : Birds, by G. Carmichael Low, M.A., M.D.,

F.R.C.P., F.Z.S.



