SPEYING AND WEBBING 243 



well as a period when pastures are dry and the solid excrement 

 hard. There are two methods of speying : (i) Ovariotomy, 

 in which the ovaries are extracted a painful operation 

 attended with haemorrhage and often considerable mortality. 

 (2) Webbing or severing the Fallopian tube and withdrawing 

 the weblike structure, which has given origin to the name in 

 common use in Australia a safe, simple, and painless process. 

 The operation in adults involves a clean perpendicular slit 

 in the skin, 4 inches long, nearer the hook-bone than the last 

 rib on the left side. After the wound in the hide has been 



FIG. 7. ANIMAL ROPED FOR THROWING. 



(From Clem Stevenson's article on A berdeen-A ngus Cattle in the Kansas State Board of 

 Agriculture, i^th Report, Part I IL, p. 357, 1901-2, pub. 1903.) 



One man pulls forward by the halter shank, while two or three men pull at the 

 loose end of the ordinary cart rope which has been fitted on as shown in the figure. 

 The animal generally goes down without a struggle. 



opened with the finger and thumb of the left hand, a slit in 

 the tissue is made, not parallel with the first incision but 

 inclining slightly from it to the right, if inch long, or just 

 large enough to allow the insertion of three fingers, which on 

 being twisted round procure the admission of the left hand 

 and arm. When the Fallopian tube is reached two fingers are 

 passed round the web, the hand is then turned and sharply 

 withdrawn with the web adhering to the fingers. 1 It is clear, 

 however, from the experiments of physiologists, that whereas 

 webbing could not fail to bring about a condition of sterility, 

 it is incapable of exercising an influence over the general 

 metabolism like that induced by ovariotomy. 



1 Indebtedness is due to Robert Christison, of Lammermoor, Queens- 

 land, and 5 Lawn Road, London, N., for the foregoing facts on speying. 



