• Psittacosis and the Starting _
[SirV.emeiloward, until lately H.M.'s Ambassador in Washington, hasAll his life in many ecamtries found-interest and pleasure in the freedom and life of the birds around him.—ED. Spectator.] ORICK meditating on the Bastille in the court-yard of his Paris inn, in the year 1763 or thereabouts, was -suddenly interrupted by a voice which complained "I can't get out." Looking in the direction of the voice he saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. "God help thee," said he, "but I'll let thee out, cost what it will." He found, however, that the cage door was so twisted and double twisted with wire that there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. "The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it as if impatient. I fear, poor creature,' said I cannot set thee at liberty.' No,' said the starling, 'I can't get out, I can't get out,' said the starling."
Yorick, whose affections were always ready to be tenderly awakened during his Sentimental Journey through France, and indeed at all times, vows that they were never more tenderly awakened than by this bird. So he returned to his room and addressed a prayer to the sweet and gracious Goddess of Liberty. The thought of the bird, however, so pursued him that, from jesting in thought at having to pass some time in the Bastille because he had no passport, he burst into tears at the bare idea of such a calamity, and decided that he would go next morning to see Monsieur le Due de Choiseul, at Versailles, and get the tiresome passport question settled. All this he successfully achieved, thanks to the starling, and thus the Sentimental Journey ended as we all know, not in the Bastille, but with a "case of delicacy" at a roadside inn somewhere between "St. Michael and Modane " in Savoy. The "case of delicacy" is typical of Sterne at his worst, of Sterne in his schoolboy" snigger- ing." -mood, as Mr. Saintsbury very aptly calls it. That, however, is by the way.
But what of the poor starling ? Was it liberated, cost what it might ? Not at all—on the contrary, Yorick tells Us that, on his return from Italy, he brought the bird back to England and gave him to Lord A., who in a week gave him to Lord B., and so on half round the alphabet. "From that rank he passed into the lower house and passed the hands of as many commoners." So the starling continued, presumably, in his little cage to his dying day saying, "I can't get out," but the soft- hearted Yorick at least commemorated him, for, says he, "From that time to this I have borne the poor Starling on the crest of my. arms."
For years past caged birds have been a distress to me, and though I have never shed copious tears, as Yorick did, on their account, I have always hoped that I might somehow, someday, help to end the sighings of these prisoners of which Sterne's starling has become the type for all time. In a minor way the traffic in wild birds resembles in many of its horrors the slave trade. There is the same capture and sale of wild things enjoying a full life in the fields and woods, there is the same herd- ing of them together in narrow and, for them, terribly unhealthy spaces—small cages and battened down holds of sailing vessels, what does it matter ?—there is the same appalling mortality of these helpless and innocent victims, the same untold misery for those that survive. And in the meantime many of our most beautiful wild birds are growing scarcer ; they pay a heavy penalty, poor things, for their fine raiment. Only the other day I saw dozens of chaffinches in cages, hardly more than six inches square, hanging on the walls of the houses of San Gimignano, and it went far to spoil my delight in that enchanting Tuscan City of Towers.
Fortunately, one class of bird more capable of self- defence than the rest, and also perhaps of self-sacrifice, has developed a method of counter-attack against the heartless gaolers Of its species.
' Some time ago I read in an American paper that as far back as 1879 a house epidemic of pneumonia was believed by Dr. Ritter to have been due to infectious material in the cage of freshly imported parrots. In Paris epidemics of psittacosis are said to have occurred in 1882, 1888, and in the epidemic of 1892 there were forty-nine cases and sixteen deaths. But still the gaolers took no action" and the sailors' parrot no doubt thought the devil of a lot.
In the Paris epidemic of 1893 a bacillus Was isolated by Dr. Nocard from the dried wings of parrots dead of psittacosis. "He showed that the organism named was very pathogenic for parrots, pigeons, fowls, and laboratory. animals." From the above quotation r take it that psittamisis may easily spread to other birds, and specially caged birds. I saw a report, not long ago, that in one recent ease a canary was believed to be the vehicle of contami- nation.
If this is so, it looks, at last, as if the feathered race generally were revenging themselves on their human gaolers. Perhaps, then, what parrots have accomplished for themselves in the way of laws and regulations z3 prevent their capture and confinement may be extended to all wild birds, so that the hearts of those who love them all will no longer be tortured by the,sight of these innocent prisoners kept—God forgive the irony of it—as pets.
I have no doubt that those who condemn to imprison. ment for life the most innocent and beautiful of God's Creatures have no notion that they are doing a cruel thing. Many of them are really kindly people, and believe that by feeding and watering regularly their little prisoners they are accomplishing the whole duty of man to the bird tribe.
What is needed is education to arouse in their minds a sense of the cruelty they are committing, and then it will be easy, nay, they themselves will insist on the passage of laws forbidding the caging of all wild birds. But education is a lengthy process, and could well be hastened by international agreement and legislation for the protee- tion of at least migratory birds all over the world, which is of its very nature a matter of international interest.
Till that time comes we must rely on psittacosis to get the starling out of prison, for what people will not readily do in the name of humanity and charity they Will submit to in the name of science and that blessed word
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