eames 
its nature, and its proper treatment. 
D 
erent 
wing-coverts of the male are leaden grey; the 
forehead is white; the chin, the throat, and the 
side of the face and neck are jet black; the breast 
-and the belly are pale chestnut ; and the legs 
and the toes are brown. ‘This bird inhabits gar- 
dens, orchards, parks, meadows, and the skirts of 
forests; and builds on ruins, old walls, decayed 
trees, and many very curious situations; and 
feeds on worms, beetles, flies, ants, larve, spiders, 
and various kinds of garden and orchard fruit. 
Its song is soft, and has something of the modu- 
lations of the nightingale. Its nest is loosely 
built, and consists externally of moss, and inter- 
nally of hair and feathers. Its eggs amount to 
from four to eight, and have an uniform greenish 
blue colour. 
The black redstart is variously called, as to 
genus, Phenicurus, Sylvia, and Motacilla, and, as 
to species, tithys, tytys, erithacus, atrata, and gib- 
raltarvensis. It is much more uncommon than 
the common redstart, and may be readily dis- 
tinguished from it by the sooty colour of its 
breast and belly. Its total length is 5} inches. 
The bill of the male is black; the irides are 
blackish brown; the back, the neck, and the top 
of the head are dark bluish grey; the wing- 
coverts are greyish black; the rump and the tail- 
coverts are chestnut ; the cheeks, the throat, the 
breast, and the sides are sooty grey; the belly is 
slaty grey ; and the legs and toes and claws are 
black. This bird has similar habits to the com- 
mon redstart, but delights in stony places, and is 
seldom seen in low and level districts. It feeds 
on worms, larve, insects, garden berries, and the 
smaller garden and orchard fruits; and builds in 
walls, roofs, clefts of rocks and similar situations. 
The nest consists principally of grass, with a 
lining of hair; and the eggs amount to 5 or 6, 
and are white, smooth, and shining. 
RED WATER. A common, severe, and un- 
tractable disease in cattle and sheep. 
Red water in cattle is also called hamaturia, 
moor-ill, darn, bloody urine, foul water, and, in 
its last stage, black water. It has been the sub- 
ject of much discussion, both in Britain and on 
the Continent, both among practical observers 
and scientific men; and it continues, in a con- 
siderable degree, to be the topic of diversified 
and conflicting opinion as to at once its causes, 
Seven 
select essays on it may be seen in the 9th volume 
of the Highland Society’s Transactions; and dis- 
cussions of it, more or less valuable, occur in the 
Veterinarian and in all the best treatises on ve- 
terinary medicine. 
Red water is sometimes acute and sometimes 
chronic, sometimes isolated and sometimes epi- 
zootic, sometimes apparently connected with 
particular kinds or states of pasture and some- 
times apparently unconnected with any particu- 
lar kind of pasture, generally irrespective of any 
distinctions of breed or sex or age or condition 
of cattle, and occasionally peculiar to cows im- 
RED WATER. 
dl 
mediately after parturition; and it may, there- 
fore, be in some sense regarded, not as strictly 
one disease, but asa group of mutually related 
or mutually similar diseases. 
When it attacks newly calved cows, it pro- 
bably arises from change of food about the period 
of parturition, or from want of sufficient cleans- 
ing, or from previous fulness of the blood, or from 
all these causes or any two of them combined ; 
when it attacks cattle on particular pastures, 
and does not attack cattle on immediately adja- 
cent ones, it probably arises, wholly or partly, from 
the eating of acrid plants, such as Ranunculus 
acris, Ranunculus flammula, Anemone nemorosa, 
and Anemone ranunculoides; but when it makes 
its attacks in other circumstances, or does not 
appear to have any traceable connexion with 
peculiar states of herbage, it probably arises from 
such a complication of causes as cannot be easily 
or very certainly explored. Mr. Robert Thom- 
son, the first of the Highland Society’s essayists, 
says, “It is most prevalent in old foggy pastures. 
It is seldom seen in hill pastures, or in new sown 
pastures, in which there is abundance of clover; 
but it sometimes happens at the stall, where the 
animal has no other allowance than straw, tur- 
nips, and potatoes. It usually makes its appear- 
ance after a few days of rain, followed by cold 
dry weather.” Mr. William Laing, another of 
the essayists, says, “I am led to infer that close 
confinement in winter is one predominating 
cause, the cattle being thus deprived of the 
necessary exercise, fresh air, and access to earth, 
which seems to be useful in correcting the | 
acidity produced in the stomach by costiveness 
and obstructed bile. Frosty water is also an- 
other cause, as it tends to produce indigestion, 
bad chyle, and consequently bad blood. Barley 
chaff, given in its natural state, but more parti- 
cularly when boiled, may also occasion it, by de- 
stroying the sensibility of the villous coats of 
the stomach. It occurs most frequently in the 
end of autumn, in winter, and more particularly 
in the early part of spring.” Mr. A. Watt, a third 
of the essayists, says, “It is produced by dry 
food, difficult of digestion, and is always found 
among cattle that are fed off newly improved 
lands, and on turnips and straw that have grown 
on poor ground. Neglect of proper watering, 
and feeding on turnips after they have begun to 
grow in spring, are also causes.” 
drew Henderson, a fourth of the essayists, states, 
as the result of extensive observation during 20 
years, that “upon a light soil, liable to be soon 
burnt up for want of moisture, he found ten at- 
tacks of the disease for one upon any of the 
neighbouring farms which might happen to have 
a deeper soil,’—that “the prevalence of the 
disease in such a situation was solely regulated 
by the state of the season, for in a moist season 
not a single instance perhaps would occur, while 
in a dry one numerous cases would appear,’— 
that, while passing by stock who were stationary 
And Mr. An- | 
=; 
