110 BREEDING AND REARING 



depend on circumstances. A very strong- healthy mother, with 

 full feeding-, may bring- up five : but when the breed is valua- 

 ble, and g-reat size and strength are required, four, or even 

 three, are more proper. — See Pupping. If a foster mother is 

 procured for the supernumerary pups, she should, if possible, be 

 one of the same breed with themselves. From the experi- 

 ence I have had in this particular, I am strong-ly inclined to 

 believe, that the qualities of the foster parent are, in some 

 deg-ree, transferred with the milk ; and when the breeds are 

 distinct, this must be very prejudicial. I am also borne out in 

 this opinion by the testimony of other observant sports- 

 men * Constitutional diseases may be likewise gained by 

 this means t. There is, at times, some difficulty experienced 

 in g-etting a foster parent to receive strange young. In this 

 case it is usual to sprinkle them v^ith the milk of the bitch 

 they are to be put to. This usually succeeds, upon the same 

 principle that shepherds, when a ewe dies, take her lamb, 

 and, having- found a ewe who has lost one, the dead lamb's 

 skin is stripped off by them, and sewed around the living 

 lamb, who is then received by the foster parent as her own. 

 Most animal instincts, connected with the reproductive sys- 

 tem, are conducted by means of. smelling. 



Puppies are born blind, and remain so for many days ; 

 their ears are also impervious. Eye-sight and hearing would 

 have been useless to animals born so indigent, and which, in a 

 state of nature, w^ere intended to remain buried the first 



* The learned author of A Treatise on Greyhounds introduces some 

 quotations to shew that this effect had not escaped the attention of the 

 antients. Columella, lib. vii, c. 12, has the following remarks onit:— - 

 ** Nee nunquam eos quorum generosam volumus indolem oonservare, 

 " patiemur alienae nutricis uberibus educari, quoniam semper lac et spi- 

 " ritus maternus longe magis ingenii atque incrementa corporis augent." 

 Similar observations occur in Xenophon. de Venat. 987 ; Oppian. Venat. i, 

 442 ; Cynosophium, &c. 



f I am acquainted with a very fine child with diseased eyelids, who is 

 the only one thus affected out of several children j she was likewise the 

 only child put out to nurse. The woman who suckled her has a large 

 family, and most of her children have the same affection. 



