FRACTURES. 
561 
The foetuses were distinctly mummified and much dis¬ 
torted. Their skulls were compressed and the cranial bones 
pushed by one another at their edges. From the condition 
of the uterine horn, as well as that of the foetuses, it may be 
inferred that the accident happened a considerable time be¬ 
fore the cat was killed. There is no evidence to show at 
what stage of gestation it occurred, nor whether they had or 
had not been extraneous placentation, nor how the two hap¬ 
pened to be wrapped so closely in a common envelope. 
Among the many cats dissected annually this is the first in¬ 
stance of abnormal pregnancy observed. 
III. The third case that I would mention is that of a gar¬ 
ter-snake, Eutania sirtahs in which some of the eggs had de¬ 
veloped in the body cavity. More than once dissection of 
this snake in the spring has revealed young yet in the egg 
membrane in the oviducts, dead and mummified, which were 
evidently the product of a previous year. In May last one 
was found with such wrecks in the body cavity outside the 
ducts, whilst the ducts were not ruptured as was proven by 
inflation. 
As is generally known, the eggs of this species develop 
and hatch in the oviducts, and accidents which might easily 
account for their death before extrusion are easily imagined ; 
harmless mother snakes are so often ruthlessly trodden under 
feet of men and boys that the young still in the egg envelops 
may be killed. But how about those found outside the ducts? 
Were the eggs fertilized before reaching the ducts, and then 
by some accident failed to enter the same, or were they fei- 
tilized in the ducts and by accident forced back into the body 
cavity? Just where the ophidian eggs are fertilized seems 
to be in' doubt ? 
FRACTURES, 
By Dr. Pierce, Oakland, Cal. 
(A. paper read before the California State Veterinary Medical Association). 
Not knowing what other subject to present to you this 
evening, I have concluded to give you a report of several 
