194 



HEAD AND NECK. 



take for " leanness/' an emaciated or wasted appearance 

 of the muscles, due to old age or debility. 



The Bombay Arab dealers (such as that fine judge, 

 Ali bin Abdullah, and that prince of Bedouins, the late 

 Shaikh Esa bin Curtas) regard thinness of the lower jaw 

 at its angles as a sure sign of pure Desert blood. 



Profile of Face. — The line of the forehead and nose, 

 when viewed in profile, will, as a rule, be straight (Fig. 

 286), concave (Fig. 287) or convex (Fig. 288). The first 

 two forms of contour are more or less characteristic of 

 the thorough-bred and Arab. Although many horses of 

 aristocratic English blood have Roman noses, especially 

 those bred in the Colonies (Fig. 288), I have never seen a 

 high caste Arab (Figs. 289, 290 and 291) have such a 

 conformation. The true concave face is obtained, not by a 

 prominent forehead, as in Fig. 292 ; but by a dip in the 

 nose between the eyes and nostrils (Fig. 287). Ormonde's 

 face (Frontispiece) tends to concavity. A Roman nose 

 (Fig. 293) might be objected to on account of its supposed 

 liability to render the air passages of the head curved, 

 instead of straight, in which case there might be some 

 shght interference with the ready ingress and egress of 

 respired air. I have, however, never met with a case in 

 which a Roman nose was the cause of impaired breathing 

 power ; although I have known a horse become a roarer 

 from alteration in the shape of the nasal cavities, from 

 a disease of the bones called osteo porosis (" big head"). 

 Many heavy cart-hOrses have a Roman nose, which is a 

 characteristic feature of the Austrian Imperial Kladrub 

 carriage-horse (Fig. 294). 



Colonel John Anderson, late Inspecting Veterinary 

 Surgeon, Bombay Army (than whom no better judge of 

 a horse exists), remarked to me many years ago, that a 

 prominent forehead (Fig. 292), or a rise between the eyes, 

 is an indication of a bad, or at least of a wayward, temper 

 in a horse, which is a theory I have seen verified in 



