Detection of Pregnancy in the Mare and the Cow. 173 



move, by my gentle tapping-, and it was a cow with which we had 

 to do, and a quiet one, I would have her carefully held by the 

 cowherd, while I stooped and applied my ear flat upon the 

 flank, and then slowly, and with gentle pressure, upwards and 

 downwards, and forwards and backwards, over the flank, and the 

 lower part of it, until I heard — and which I should do in a great 

 majority of cases — the pulsations of the foetal heart. I should 

 recognise it by their quickness, the pulsations of the foetus being 

 double or more than double those of the mother. 



If it was a mare, I would have a halter put on her, and an 

 assistant should hold up one of her legs while some person in- 

 terested reached under, or, perhaps knelt under the belly of the 

 mare, and, passing one ear along an imaginary line from between 

 the teats to the chest, and deviating a little from one side to the 

 other, he would there also recognise the quick pulsation of the 

 foetal heart. 



These observations are addressed to practical men, and will be 

 speedily put to the test by them. The object of the author is to 

 get rid of the vulgar and ineflicient methods of detecting pregnancy 

 which are now in general use, and to introduce others that are 

 founded on a surer and more scientific basis. 



This subject is more fully treated of in the second volume of 

 the ' Proceedings of the Veterinary Medical Association,' p. 126, 

 and in the T2th volume of ' The Veterinarian,' p. 377. 



XIX. — On the Orobanche (or Broom-rape), and Prunella vul- 

 garis (or Self-heal), plants injurious to Clover. By James 

 Main, A.L.S. 



To the Secretary of the English Agricultural Society. 

 Sir, 



I OBSERVE in the first article of your Journal, lately published, the 

 writer. Ph. Pusey, Esq., M.P., refers to a circumstance which re- 

 quires further investigation than as yet has been bestowed upon it by 

 British farmers. I allude to what that gentleman has reported of 

 the difiiculty of raising the common broad- clover in Belgium^ 

 owing to the attack of a parasitical plant, of which two species are 

 indigenous in Britain, and which very often deteriorate the quality 

 and diminish the quantity of our second crops of that invaluable 

 fodder. 



These parasites are the Orobanche major and O. minor, com- 

 monly called broom-rape — meaning, perhaps, a robber of broom, 

 from their being frequently found on waste ground growing on the 



-'IP idi ton btuo'^ * b-iR .^s^??'^n '■• 



