214 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



The pastern-bone of a horse would correspond with the 

 third bone of the middle finger or toe of a man, and the 

 cannon-bone with that of the foot or palm of the hand. The 

 hock of a horse being equal to the human heel, it seems to 

 me that the word indicates that the ancients realised what is 

 not understandable by the majority of civilised persons to-day 

 — that anatomically the hock of the horse was equal to the 

 human heel. In Dutch hak is the heel. 



Eeturning to the word cheval, a horse, and its connections, 

 we have cheval de /rise and chevaux de frise, a special or out- 

 lying or advanced military protection to a camping-place, 

 which is an arrangement of iron spikes placed on the ground 

 to confuse the charge of an attacking force. This in German 

 is Spanische reiter and Frisische reiter, which Skeat says is, 

 "Literally, horse or horses of Friesland — a jocular name." 

 So far as I remember, these were a number of iron spikes 

 fastened to a central piece, or a ball of spikes, many of which 

 were placed around the temporary camp, so as to injure the 

 horses in case of a charge of cavalry by the enemy- 



The French cavale, a mare, is no doubt an altered variant 

 of the Celtic capull, a horse. From capull comes the Latin 

 caball-us ; Greek, kaball-es, which is the more evident owing 

 to the two latter words being without the feminine form. 

 The correct names for horse are — Latin, equ-us ; Greek, 

 hipp-os, which leads to the inference that these two nations 

 first became acquainted with the horse in an eastern country, 

 and so imported an eastern name for the animal. Note 

 Sanscrit acva (akva) ; Persian esp, a horse. Latin caball-us 

 denoted a pack-horse, a small horse or pony. 



To the French words cheval, a horse, and cavale, a mare, 

 we are indebted for many of the English terms denoting the 

 higher classes of society and warlike actions, because in this 

 case the horse was mainly used by the wealthy and for ser- 

 vice in battle. The peasant or labourer did not use the 

 horse to till the ground, or to plough, or to cart produce and 

 effects, but used oxen. 



It is worthy of special remark that the French have a 

 distinct term to denote the shelter provided for the horse in 

 ecurie, when that for cattle (bestiaux) is Stable, an ostler or 

 stable-boy being valet d'ecurie. 



To house or stable cattle is Stabler, but of horses loger, 

 from logis, a house or lodging, as seen in the signboard notice: 

 " bon logis a pied et a cheval." 



We English speak of a partially enclosed building for 

 cattle as a cowshed, but the Scotch have byre, a cowhouse, 



connected with Anglo-Saxon byre, dwellings, plural of bur, a 

 chamber, a bower ; Icelandic bur, a chamber. Here we form 



