fall that I made inquiries of the biological bureaus of Washington and Ottawa for information of their life history and the possibilities of their transmission to other hosts.

Replies from these sources surprised me with the information that very little was known of the life history of any of the Sarcosporidia, of which group this was a species.  Nothing was known of the method of infection or the transference from host to host or species to species, and both departments asked for specimens for examination.

Authorities are a unit in opinion that the question is one of great importance to game conservation, and although opinions of the dangers from eating differ somewhat, a record is given of a hog fed upon affected flesh developing parasites in the muscles in six weeks’ time, while a case of a man’s death from dropsy was found to be the result of development of these parasites in the valves of the heart.

The ability of these low forms of life to withstand extremes of heat makes it necessary for more than ordinary cooking to be assured of killing them, and since their presence is unnoted in the ordinary course of dressing the birds for the table, there is little doubt that very considerable numbers of these parasites are consumed at our tables every season, with results at present unknown to us.

The species I have found most particularly infected have been mallards, shovellers, teal, gadwall and pintails, and the birds, outwardly in the best condition, have frequently been found loaded with sacs of these parasites and only the turning back of the breast skin can disclose their presence.

The greatest slaughter of wild ducks by disease occurred on Great Salt Lake, Utah.  Until the “duck disease” (intestinal coccidiosis) broke out there, in the summer of 1910, the annual market slaughter of ducks at the mouth of Bear River had been enormous.  When at Salt Lake City in 1888 I made an effort to arouse the sportsmen whom I met to the necessity of a reform, but my exhortations fell on deaf ears.  Naturally, the sweeping away of the remaining ducks by disease would suggest a heaven-sent judgment upon the slaughterers were it not for the fact that the last state of the unfortunate ducks is if anything worse than the first.

On Oct. 17, 1911, the annual report of the chief of the Biological Survey contained the following information on this subject: 

Epidemic Among Wild Ducks on Great Salt Lake.—­Following a long dry season, which favored the rearing of a large number of wild ducks, but materially reduced the area of the feeding ponds, resulting in great overcrowding, a severe epidemic broke out about August 1, 1910, among the wild ducks about Great Salt Lake, Utah.  Dead ducks could be counted by thousands along the shores and the disease raged unabated until late fall.  Shooting clubs found it necessary to declare a closed