DUEATION OF PREGNANCY. 255 



attended to in their infancy, though I think this does not exert so 

 much influence as the above practice. 



DURATION OF PREGNANCY. 



The bitch is said by naturalists to go with young sixty-three 

 days, reckoning from the time of warding. This is no doubt the 

 average period, but it cannot be reckoned on with certainty. I 

 have myself had two bitches whelp on the same day though a 

 week had intervened between the two days of warding. From 

 careful records kept by Mr. Gibson and other experienced 

 coursers, I am strongly of opinion that the nine weeks must not 

 date from the access of the dog to the bitch, but from the middle 

 of her heat. Most bitches are more or less e in season ' twenty-one 

 days, which may be divided into three periods of nine days each. 

 In the first nine days there is only a little swelling and heat of the 

 external organs ; in the second there is great swelling, and in the 

 early part a slight discharge of blood, which is replaced by a flow 

 of yellow mucus, continuing to the end ; the third period 

 resembles the first, except that the symptoms of heat &c. are on 

 the decline instead of the reverse. The bitch will not usually 

 admit the dog during more than four or five days, but sometimes 

 this is extended to the whole of the middle period. When a bitch 

 has been warded twice the puppies generally come sixty- three days 



