82 EXAMINATION OF HORSES 
a sign and a symptom. A mare supposed to be far 
advanced in pregnancy is brought to you, and you are 
requested to give an opinion as to whether or not she be 
in foal. You find an enlarged abdomen, an enlarged| 
udder, and perhaps the udder contains milk, as you can 
see by squeezing some of it out. You then, for protec- 
tion, have the mare’s fore foot lifted, take off your hat 
and press your ear against the abdomen, far underneath, 
and shift your ear from place to place till at last you hear 
the beating of the foetal heart. You may fail to find it on 
one side, but you go to the other—well under the belly. 
By patience you at last find it; you hear the tick-tac, 
tick-tac, just like the beat of a large watch. This is the 
beat of the foetal heart, it is nothing else,—it caz be nothing 
else ; nothing in the animal economy, normal or abnormal, 
could produce such a sound except the fetal heart. 
Here then is a sign. You can say for certain not only 
that the mare is in foal, but that she has within her a’ 
living foal. You can mark the place with a piece of 
chalk and delight your employer by letting him hear it,— 
and he can disappoint himself and his boon companions 
by taking them next day to listen over the chalked spot, 
and fail to hear the foetal heart. He calls you again. You 
have to explain that a living, healthy foetus takes regular 
exercise, and sports about ina fluid of its own specific 
gravity (amniotic fluid), and that it will have altered its 
position most likely, and will give you another hunt with 
your ear. But what were the enlarged abdomen, and 
udder containing milk? We call them symptoms; and 
