s/t.w's .tx/) vurnsE uf /•.urrrnjTiox. 2.Ji> 



With the Cow, because of the multiple placentubri, the number of 

 which may be over a hundred, the adhesion between the uterus and 

 fa'tal membranes is very intimate ; while the small volume of the 

 cotyledons offers but little surface for the uterine contractions to act 

 upon. So that while it happens that tlie Calf is never born in its intact 

 envelopes, it is also the case that the afterbirth is only slowly and 

 tardily extruded — two, four, or more hours, or even days, being required ; 

 and, indeed, it is not at all rare for retention to occur in this animal, 

 and the envelopes require to be removed artificially. 



Multiparous animals get rid of the envelopes as they expel the 

 fcjetuses, the birth of the first being followed in a very brief space by its 

 membranes ; after which comes the second fcetus, then its envelopes, 

 and so on ; so that only those of the last foetus may be retained — an 

 accident which sometimes occurs. In these animals, the membraues 

 appear to be expelled without any difficulty ; the Bitch, for instance, 

 runs into a corner, and assuming a position as if about to micturate, 

 expels the secundines of the last puppy, devours them, and returns to 

 the other puppies. 



With animals usually uniparous, but which sometimes bring forth 

 two or more young, the envelopes of each foetus are expelled imme- 

 diately after it is born, so long as they do not offer an obstacle to the 

 passage of the next foetus ; so that in a double birth in the Cow or 

 Ewe, a foetus being lodged in each horn, the second may be born 

 without the envelopes of the first having been discharged. 



We may here note the strange instinct which impels not only carni- 

 vorous and omnivorous, but also herbivorous animals — Bitch, Cat, Sow, 

 Cow, and even sometimes the Mare — to devour the membranes as 

 soon as they are expelled, if they are not quickly removed from beyond 

 their reach ; at times they even devour them as they are being 

 extruded, and the work of delivery is thus hastened. However un- 

 natural and disgusting this propensity may appear, and though the 

 cause for it is unknown, it does not occasion any visible inconvenience 

 to the animal 



It has been already remarked, that when the young creature is 

 expelled in its intact envelopes, the mother, if at large, frees it from 

 them by gnawing them through ; more rarely does the progeny release 

 itself by its own efforts. If the mother should chance to be tied up, 

 as in a stall, assistance may be required to cut the umbilical cord and 

 extract the young animal from its imprisoning membranes, else it may 

 become asphyxiated. This peculiarity is most frequently observed in 

 the Mare, with which birth is always rapid, and the cliorion strong 

 and easily detached from the uterus. Rueff states that it is not unusual 

 in the Sow. 



Cri.\PTER II. 

 Presentations of the Foetus and Mechanism of Parturition. 



In addition to, and to a certain extent independent of, the physiological 

 phenomena of gestation and parturition, there are in the latter certain 

 l)hysical and mechanical acts which have been, as Saint-Cyr remarks, 

 liitherto very imperfectly studied in veterinary medicine, but the con- 



