Fleas and Flukes Everyone who has handled birds knows that
they have fleas. The starling's nest is a revelation, for they are as untidy and insanitary as any bird, and have numerous ticks. I had often thought that birds might be responsible for the transfer of disease from one locality to another, and now, having read the work of Miriam Rothschild and Theresa Clay, I confess I see the entire avian world in a new light. The book written by these zoologists is Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos, and is published by Messrs. Collies in their New Naturalist series. It describes the parasites of the bird-world from the ticks that sudk the blood of nestlings to the fluke that finds its way through the liver of a gull as part of its involved life-cycle. As the authors point out, it is often the early worm that gets the bird. The robin that preens himself on the wall does not do so to charm but to relieve the irritation caused by lice.
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