100 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
of tetanus, or locked-jaw. The village operator pretends to tell when 
this will or will not supervene. The usual struggles of the animal, or 
the usual expressions of pain, he does not regard ; but when, as he is 
gnawing the cord asunder with his teeth, he feels a deep and universal 
shudder of the animal, he says at once that that lamb will die. He is 
often right about this, and when he is, it can be easily explained. By 
the fearful torture he has inflicted, ho has caused a shock of the whole 
of the nervous system, from which the poor sufferer can never perfectly 
recover. 
Occasionally, when the lamb that was selected as a breeder does not 
turn out well, it is necessary, in order to fatten him and to make his 
flesh salable, to castrate him. There are various ways of performing 
this operation on the young or fully adult sheep. Some proceed pre- 
cisely as with the horse. An incision is made into the scrotum ; the 
testicle is forced out, the iron clamps are put on the cord, which is then 
divided between the clamp and the testicle, and the cautery is had re- 
course to in order to sear the part and prevent bleeding. This opera- 
tion usually succeeds well, but it is not every operator on sheep that has 
the clamps or the firing-iron. 
The preferable way of operating is, to tie a waxed cord as tightly as 
possible round the scrotum above, and quite clear of the testicles. The 
circulation will here also be completely stopped, and usually in two or 
three days the scrotum and the testicles will drop off. Accidents have 
occurred, but which are attributable to the operator; he has included 
a portion of the testicle in the ligature, and thus laid the foundation for 
very great and fatal inflammation ; or he has used too large a cord, and 
which could not be drawn sufficiently tight; or the knot has slackened 
and the ligature has pressed sufficiently to produce excessive inflamma- 
tion and torture, but not completely to cut off the supply of blood. 
Care being taken in the application of the cord to the exact part, and 
the tightening of the ligature, the animal seems scarcely to suffer any 
pain; indeed, the nerves are evidently deadened by the compression of 
the cord, and no accident occurs. 
Docking. — There is much variety of opinion among sheep-masters as 
to the time when this operation should be performed. Some, like Mr. 
Parkinson, think that it should be done within a very few days after 
the birth ; the ewes on the first, second, or third day, and the male 
lambs when they are castrated. The author of the “Complete Gra- 
zier” would defer it until the lambs are three or four months old. This 
must depend on the state of the weather, and the health of the animals. 
No one should dock his lambs when the weather is very cold, because 
the bushy tails of the animals afford a great deal of warmth. On this 
account, in particularly exposed situations, it is deferred until the warm 
weather sets thoroughly in, and by some, and particularly with their 
owes, not practiced at all. The tail certainly affords both protection 
and warmth to the udder, and likewise defense against the dreadful 
annoyance of the flies in hot weather; but, on the other hand, it per- 
mits the accumulation of a great deal of filth, and, if the lamb or the 
sheep should labor under diarrhoea, and the shepherd should be some- 
what negligent, the tail may cling to the haunches, and that so closely 
