S/';\s JXD COURSE OF rARTunTTToy. 



•J37 



Mare it is usually brief, and is ordinarily accomplished in about ten 

 minutes, sometimes in live — tliouj^h it may extend to a quarter or half 

 an hour, rarely more. This rapidity appears to be due to the fact tliat 

 tlie placenta is detached from the uterus during the early pains, and 

 consequently the ftrtus cannot live long after this occurs — three hours 

 being supposed to be the limit — unless it can breathe by the lungs. 

 The duration in the Cow is, on the average, one to two hours ; though 

 it may only be a few minutes to half an hour, or be extended, without 

 injury to the Calf, to one or two days. With Cows at pasture or which 

 do no work, it is sometimes only fifteen minutes. With the Sheep the 

 period is also brief, being about fifteen minutes. If there are several 

 Lambs, there is usually an interval of fifteen minutes to two hours 

 between them — the second and succeeding births being always quicker 

 than the first. 



With multiparous animals — Sow, Bitch, and Cat — there is ordinarily 

 a period of ten or fifteen minutes, and sometimes half an hour, an hour 



Fig. 70. 

 M.MiK IS THK Act ok Parturition : Rkcimrest Po.sition. 



or even more, between each birth. Not unfrequently the Sow will 

 bring forth ten young ones within the course of an hour. 



We have mentioned that with those animals which are delivered in 

 a standing position, the umbilical cord is ruptured when the young 

 creature reaches the ground, and usually close to its abdomen. If the 

 mother is recumbent when the olVspring is born, the cord is torn as she 

 gets up, which is usually immediately after parturition. The circula- 

 tion in and by the cord being incomplete shortly before and during 

 labour, its texture appears to undergo a kind of softening that favours 

 rupture ; while owing to the vessels being reduced in size, and also the 

 way in which their rupture occurs, hjrmorrhage is trifling. Sometimes, 

 however, the cord is sutViciently strong and elastic to resist spontaneous 

 rupture, and the young creature is born with the membranes attached 

 to it by means of this bond of union. The mother then, by a remark- 

 able instinct, in cleansing the young creature with its tongue, gnaws 

 through the cord and sets free its progeny. The Mare and Cow have 

 been known to do this at times ; otherwise it is usual with the 

 Carnivora. 



Whether the cord be ruptured spontaneously or gnawn through by 



