BREEDING. 59 



allowed, by fencing or any violent exercise, to damage 

 herself and her precious burden. It is safer during the 

 last three weeks to give her exercise in the leash, except 

 in places where she is not likely to be excited to any 

 sudden violent exertion. It is important that the bowels 

 should be acting freely at the time she gives birth, and 

 it is better to secure that by varying the diet than by 

 medicine of any sort; but if the latter must be resorted 

 to, castor oil is the safest. 



I have now to suggest a mode of treatment for the 

 prevention of future trouble and loss, which I believe I 

 was the first to advise. It rests entirely on an experience 

 which has been considerable; but by so saying I do not 

 disguise that the treatment is empirical, although I have 

 strong hope that eventually science will show the conjecture 

 on which it rests to have been correct. 



Every breeder of Greyhounds knows to his cost that 

 puppies almost as soon as born, if not at and before 

 birth, are infested with worms, which destroy or render 

 useless hundreds; the intestines of puppies only a few 

 days old have been found blocked with them. 



Where do they come from ? was the question I asked 

 myself; and I asked others professional men and re- 

 ceived most unsatisfactory answers, mostly involving theo- 

 ries utterly untenable. I consulted such works on animal 

 parasites as were within my reach, learning much, but 

 getting no definite answer to the question that puzzled 

 me. I did, however, from these sources learn that the 

 methods of transmission and reproduction of parasites 

 are as varied and often as marvellous as anything in 

 Nature. 



