82 EXAMINA TION OF HORSES 



a sig7i and a symptom. A mare supposed to be far 

 advanced in pregnancy is brought to you, and you are 

 requested to give an opinion as to whether or not she be 

 in foal. You find an enlarged abdomen, an enlarged 

 udder, and perhaps the udder contains milk, as you can 

 see by squeezing some of it out. You then, for protec- 

 tion, have the mare's fore foot lifted, take off your hat 

 and press your ear against the abdomen, far underneath, 

 and shift your ear from place to place till at last you hear 

 the beating of the foetal heart. You may fail to find it on 

 one side, but you go to the other — well under the belly. 

 By patience you at last find it ; you hear the tick-tac, 

 tick-tac, just like the beat of a large watch. This is the 

 beat of the foetal heart, it is nothing else, — it can be nothing 

 else; nothing in the animal economy, normal or abnormal, 

 could produce such a sound except the foetal heart. 

 Here then is a sign. You can say for certain not only 

 that the mare is in foal, but that she has within her a 

 living foal. You can mark the place with a piece of 

 chalk and delight your employer by letting him hear it, — 

 and he can disappoint himself and his boon companions 

 by taking them next day to listen over the chalked spot, 

 and fail to hear the foetal heart. He calls you again. You 

 have to explain that a living, healthy foetus takes regular 

 exercise, and sports about in a fluid of its own specific 

 gravity (amniotic fluid), and that it will have altered its 

 position most likely, and will give you another hunt with 

 your ear. But what were the enlarged abdomen, and 

 udder containing milk ? We call them symptoms \ and 



