Page 108 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
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ravagedbytheplague. Theyarewipedoutinasinglespringbyepi- demic diseases usually characterized by swellings of the throat, sores under the armpits and groins, and by diarrhea."
"The year 1885 was for the country around Carberr}^ 'a rabbit year.' thegreatesteverknowninthatcountry. Thenumberofrabbitswas incredible. W. R. Hine killed 75 in two hours, and estimated that he couldhavekilled5C0inaday. Thefarmerswerestrickenwithfear that the rabbit pest of Australia was to be repeated in Manitoba. But the years 1886-7 changed all that. The rabbits died until their bodies dotted the country in thotisands. The plague seemed to kill all the members of the vast host of 1885."
The strangest item of Mr. Seton's story is yet to be told. In 1890 Mr. Seton stocked his park at Cos Cob, Conn., with hares and rabbits from several widely separated locaHties. In 1903, the plague came and swept them all away. Mr. Seton sent specimens to the Zoological Park for examination by the Park veterinary surgeon. Dr. W. Reid Blair. They were found to be infested by great numbers of a dangerous blood- sucking parasite known as Strongylus strigosus, which produces death by anemiaandemaciation. Therewerehundredsofthoseparasitesineach animal. I assisted in the examination, and was shown by Dr. Blair, under the microscope, that Strongylus puts forth eggs literally by hun- dreds of thousands
The life history of that parasite is not well known, but it may easily develop that the cycle of its maximum destructiveness is seven years, and therefore it may be accountable for the seven-year plague among the hares and rabbits of the northern United States and Canada.
Possibly Strongylus strigosus is all that stands between Canada and a pest of rabbits like that of Australia. Just why this parasite is inoperative in AustraHa, or why it has not been introduced there to lessen the rabbit evil, we do not know. Mr. Seton declares that the rabbits of his park were "subject to all the ills of the flesh, except possibly writer's paralysis and housem.aid's knee."
Parasitic Infection of Wild Ducks.—The diseases of wild game, especially waterfowl, grouse and quail, have caused heavy losses in America as well as in European countries, and scientists have been carefully investigating the cause and the general nature of the maladies, aswellasprobablemethodsofpreventionandcure. Mr.Geo.Atkinson, a well-known practical naturaHst of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, writes as follows to a local paper on this subject, which I find quoted in the National Sportsman:
The • question which has developed these important proportions during the past year is that of the extent of the parasitic infection of our wild ducks and other game, and the possibiHties of the extended transmission of these parasites to domestic stock, or even humanity, by eating.
The parasites in question are contained in small elliptical cases found underlying the surface muscles of the breast, and in advanced cases extending deeper into the fleshandthemusculartissuesofthelegsandwings. Theyarenotnoticeableinthe ordinary process of plucking the bird for the table, and are not found internally, so