and subsequent possible Fertilisation of their Ova, 59 



tribe, and, having sufficiently excited the animal with the scent of 

 the material he had brought, collected from him spermatozoa, which 

 he introduced on his return into the vagina of his mare, and obtained 

 thereby a foal. 



The story as it stands is sufficiently improbable, but it would seem 

 almost as improbable that such an incident as is here described could 

 have been invented or imagined in those early days, and, in view of 

 the fact that artificial insemination of mares is actually practised 

 now, though in a very different manner, the improbability of this 

 story is, to some extent, decreased.* 



The ouly modern evidence I have been able to obtain regarding the 

 artificial insemination of mares, comes from the United States. 



A writer on " Breeding Mares," in 1 The Horseman ' (No. 1), 1894, 

 speaks of the artificial insemination of mares as of established use- 

 fulness, giving positive results. 



He gives as an example his experience on a farm where the stalliou 

 was of " faulty formation," and the mares were not "settling." At 

 the time of his visit four mares were in season ; by his advice one of 

 them was served by the stallion, and the other three were artificially 

 inseminated with semen taken from the vagina of this first mare. 



The result of the experiment was that the mare which was actually 

 served by the stallion failed to become pregnant, while the three 

 which were artificially inseminated were all got with foal. Subse- 

 quently, the writer adds, twenty-five mares on this same farm, 

 which had previously missed getting with foal in the ordinary way, 

 were operated on, and twenty-three of them became pregnant in 

 consequence. 



A writer on " Artificial Impregnation," in the same paper (No. 2), 



1895, quotes a letter from a breeder in Harrison, 111., dated August, 

 1894, from which it appears that the previous season this gentle- 

 man had seventeen mares which had refused to " stand to the horse." 

 All of them had refused for two years past, some for several years ; 

 these mares were artificially inseminated and nine foals were in con- 

 sequence produced. 



In this article it is recorded that one mare, sixteen years old, which 

 had repeatedly failed to produce young in the ordinary way, was 

 operated on in July, 1893, and bore a filly in June, 1894; while a 

 jennet, twenty-five years old, which had not bred for six years, foaled 

 a colt in J une, 1894, after artificial insemination in June of the pre- 

 vious year. 



There can be little doubt of the bona fides of these reports, but in 



* Note, February 11. — In connection with this story I should have added here, 

 that the spermatozoa of a dog "was sent to me by post, during the early spring of 



1896, and, when examined eighteen hours after it was obtained from the dog, I 

 found fully half of the spermatozoa active and vigorous. 



