522 
REVIEW. 
We are confident that there exists among our body a 
fund of valuable information, which can be brought to bear 
on the breeding of animals. 
Does a week pass without our profession being consulted 
by the breeders of stock on the cause of impotence in their 
bulls, or of sterility in their mares ? Every one engaged in 
agricultural pursuits must be conversant with the disappoint- 
ments which farmers are constantly meeting with on this 
score ; and besides this it too often happens that no clue can 
be obtained as to the cause of the weedy animals we see bred on 
some farms. Food, situation, and a thousand disturbing causes 
are evoked to explain the degeneracy ; whereas we should look 
for a remedy to physiology ; and it is alone after a compre- 
hensive study of the generative functions that we can expect to 
remove these anomalies. 
The author describes the functions of the reproductive 
organs under the separate heads of erection and emission. 
Under the former he shows how short a time in some animals 
the act lasts. 
“ We have, at p. 29, noticed the prolonged copulation of the dog. In 
some other classes of animals it takes place with wonderful celerity — so 
quickly, in fact, that at one time it was stated, that the coitus of stags had 
not been observed even by the oldest keepers. Professor Owen tells me, 
however, that it may be witnessed in Richmond Park, somewhat in the fol- 
lowing way: — The buck will be seen to scrape hollows two or three 
feet deep in certain portions of the park; to these places he leads the 
does. One by one, they place themselves in these hollows ; the buck 
drives away all other males from the neighbourhood, then, with a rush, 
mounts the doe ; in an instant the act is accomplished, and the female 
retires, to be replaced by another. Professor Owen says, he cannot 
explain why these hollows should be made in the ground, as there is 
nothing in the conformation of the doe to require that she should be 
placed on a level lower than that which the buck leaps from. It may be, 
however, that this position is necessary, as noticed at p. 26, with reference 
to the cat. Now, although the act itself is instantaneous, the premonitory 
excitement is of long duration. It is, then, possible that erection lasts but 
for an instant, and hence the necessity of this preparation and position. 
“Mr. Thompson, the superintendent at the Zoological Gardens, tells me 
that he has seen copulation take place in stags both in the wild state and 
in confinement. A peculiar place is not necessary for the act. He agrees 
