VETERINARY OBSTETRICY. 
19 
senting, our best procedure will be to fasten cords around the fore 
legs, to pull at, and to force the hind legs and quarters in, with 
both our hands if necessary, while our assistants are pulling at 
the legs and head, by these means the anterior parts will occupy 
the passage, and will soon exclude and keep out the hinder parts : 
but in case the head should not be presented, it will be far more 
advisable to fix the cords around the hind legs, and force the fore 
ones in, while assistants are pulling at the cords ; when we shall 
find that the rump and tail will soon make their appearance, and 
extraction will take place as in a breech presentation. 
In some few cases it will be found that four feet may have 
been presenting, and that only the two foremost have made their 
appearance, whilst the two hinder ones are out of sight, within 
the pelvis, jutting outwards against its sides. Knowing this to 
be the case, we ought to be very careful not to use too great force 
at any time in extracting the foetus, without having previously 
examined whether this cause of obstruction exists; for if it does, 
of course, different plans must be adopted for its extraction, in 
illustration of which circumstance I have related in the eighteenth 
volume of The Veterinarian, page 608, a case in point, to 
which I refer your readers. 
Twins, Head and six Legs. 
We need not to be at all surprised in meeting sometimes with 
very difficult cases, when we consider the vast number of foetuses 
animals occasionally bring forth at one birth, when I mention 
that there have been instances of the sow bringing as many as 
twenty-three, the ewe seven, and cow four (and nine at three 
births) ; but I never heard of the mare bringing more than two. 
In the sow the numbers are not of much consequence, as she 
appears to pass them with as great ease as if they were fewer in 
number ; but in other animals it is, frequently, when called in to 
attend oKthem in parturiency, a source of vast anxiety and labour. 
Of course, when there are several foetuses, they must, in most 
instances, be necessarily proportionately small ; but this is not an 
invariable rule, as some are large, or almost of the usual size, 
whilst others prove very small. To shew the method that should 
be adopted where there are a multiplicity of legs appearing, I 
think I cannot do better than relate a case that occurred to Mr. G. 
Canu (The VETERINARIAN, vol. xi, p. 57), as it is the plan I 
pursue in my own practice, and" one that I should recommend. 
His patient was a cow, and six legs and head were presented — 
the head and fore extremities in one case, and the four extremi- 
ties in the other. He says, “ it was difficult for some time to 
