316 Origines Zoologicce, 



to green old age, or elder gaiety, that he has still a colt*s 

 tooth in his head : and, of a present which may not exactly 

 meet the wishes of the receiver, it is observed, that we must 

 not look a gift horse in the mouth. The common term 

 course, as the first course or match, second course, &c., may 

 be taken from the sport of racing ; and so the course, or bent 

 of a man's studies, whence stud. Formerly, in horseraces, 

 the prize was a gold or silver bell ; whence we say of any 

 successful adventurer, that he bears the bell ; and of a haughty 

 person, we observe, that he rides a high horse, or the fore 

 horse. Small bells were, anciently, an essential part of the 

 gaudy trappings of a horse, both from their musical jingle, 

 and that notice might be given of his approach in narrow 

 lanes. " A horse trapped with silver bells," says Stowe, 

 " was given by the citizens of London to King Richard the 

 Second, on his entrance into the city." At the coronation of 

 one of the Edwards, five hundred horses were turned loose, 

 as a largess to such as could catch them. The horseshoe 

 was of old considered as the emblem of good luck, and as 

 having power to avert witchcraft, and drive off evil spirits ; 

 and it is still sometimes seen on the threshold of the peasant, 

 and nailed against the masts of vessels. To ride the wooden 

 horse, or the horse that is foaled of an acorn, was once a 

 severe mode of military punishment, called picketing ; inflicted 

 by placing the miserable culprit across some oaken planks, 

 brought to a sharp edge or angle, with a carbine or heavy 

 weight fastened to each foot, to render his seat more exqui- 

 sitely painful : and from this circumstance may have origin- 

 ated the expression of horsing a boy in a public school. 



Darius was chosen king by the neighing of his horse ; and 

 Caligula made his horse a senator. One of Hector's horses, 

 called Xanthus, was a conjuror, whose prophecies are recorded 

 in Homer ; and Troy was taken by a horse. Pliny relates 

 that the chariot of Nero was drawn by four hermaphroditical 

 mares. In derision of conjugal pusillanimity, we say, that 

 the grey mare is the better horse ; and, as a joke upon 

 preposterous mirth, it is said that a mare's nest is found. 



The phrase of a man's hobbyhorse originates from the cir- 

 cumstance of boys riding upon sticks, or cock-horses. 



By Aristotle, and the older writers on comparative anatomy, 

 he is said, in common with all those quadrupeds which have 

 solid hoofs, to have no gall. Accurate enquiry, nevertheless, 

 will demonstrate that, although there will be found no distinct 

 gall bladder, there is a thin membranous substance, under 

 which is contained the gall, branching itself into the lobes of 

 the liver, and diflfusing itself into the intestines ; and this 



