FRKE MARTENS—ROARING. 81 
subjects connected witli sporting, as practised at present in France, 
which is becoming almost a sporting country. 
Something was said by one of your correspondents, a year or 
two back, on the generally received opinion, that a heifer-calf, twin 
with a bull-calf, distinguished in the agricultural world as a free 
marten, will not breed. I can speak to one instance of barrenness 
in a fine short-horn Durham heifer, which I purchased with others, 
when on my Yorkshire tour, in 1828. She was put to five bulls, 
but to no purpose ; and I afterwards learned that she was a twin 
with a bull-calf. When stalled, she fed rapidly, and paid hand¬ 
somely for her keep. This notion prevails as regards the human 
race, but I can bring one instance that goes some way towards a 
refutation of it. My mother miscarried of a male foetus, and went 
her full time with the female one—now alive and well, and the 
mother of seven children. In my midland tour of hounds, last year, 
I mention the case of a celebrated hermaphrodite hound in the pack 
of the late Earl Fitzwilliam, which I believe is a rare one in the 
natural world; and, as regards the free marten, I hope that some 
light will be thrown upon the subject by the researches of the ve¬ 
terinary profession, now they are so praiseworthily turning their 
attention to animals less noble but not less useful than the horse. 
In vol. 69 of the Philosophical Transactions, there is an interesting 
account of the free-marten by the celebrated Mr. John Hunter, in 
which its hermaphroditical peculiarities are established. From the 
dissection of three of these animals, it plainly appeared that they 
were all hermaphrodites, differing from one another; as is also the 
case in hermaphrodites in other tribes. 
To return to the horse. What can all this roaring proceed from ? 
I mean its very general increase amongst horses of all descriptions. 
Surely it must proceed from some unknown atmospheric agency. 
It cannot, I think, be attributed to merely the atmosphere and 
temperature of stables, forasmuch as w'ere the former—in those of 
hunters and race-horses at least—put to the test of a eudiometer, 
it would be found to be pure, compared with what it was forty 
years back, when every hole and crevice, even the key hole of the 
door, was stopped up; and the latter is invariably lower by some 
degrees than at the period to which I am alluding. I perceive this 
subject is now occupying the attention of your profession; and 
I read Mr. Carter’s Essay, and the detailed conversation which 
took ])lace on its recital, with very great interest; as I did that of 
Mr. Turner, in which he produced a satisfactory case of ol)struc- 
tion in the nasal chambers as the cause of roaring, a circumstance 
that gave rise to several discussions amongst some of my sporting 
friends who have suffered by this scourge in their stables. They 
flattered themselves with I he idea that, if such were the scat of the 
