Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1893 — Margery for Birds. [ARTICLE]

Margery for Birds.

In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal we find the following: Some interesting observations relating to the surgical troatiriont 6f wounds by birds were recently brought bv M. Fabio before the Physical Society of Geneva. The author quotes the case of the snipe, which he bad often observed engaged in repairing damages. With Its beak and feathers it makes a very creditable dressing, applying plasters to the bleeding* wfltteds. ana even seouring a broken limb fey means of a stout ligature. On ono' occasion he killed a snipe which had -on Its chest a large dressing composed of down, taken from other parts of the body and seourely fixed to the wound by the coagulated blood. Twioe he had brought home snipe with interwoven feathers strapped on to the side of fractures of ono or other limb. The most interesting example was that of a shipe, both of whoso legs he had unfortunately broken by a misdirected shot. Ho recovered the animal only on the following day, and he then found that the poor oird had oontrived to apply dressings and a sort of splint to both limbs. In carrying out this operation some feathers had beoome entangled around the beak, and not being able to use Its claws to get rid of them It wAS almost dead from hunger when discovered. In a case reoorded by M. Magner, 1 a Snipe which was observed to fly away with a broken leg was subset quently found to have forced the fragments into a parallel, position, tho upper fragments reaching to the knee, and secured them there by means of A strong bund of feathers and mbss intermingled. The observers were particularly struck by the application of a ligature of a kind of flat-leaved grass wound round the limb, of a spiral form, and fixed by means of a sort of glue,