164 SKELETON OF THE HORSE. 



beforehand, that the same bones would be found in the 

 horse as in the seal ; yet a comparison of their skeletons, 

 Cuts 27 and 28, will demonstrate that this is, to a very 

 great degree, the case. 



The vertebral formula of the horse is : 7 cervical, C, 

 19 dorsal, D, 5 lumbar, L, 5 sacral, S, and 17 caudal. 

 Eight pairs of ribs directly join the sternum, 60, which 

 consists of seven bones and an ensiform cartilage. The 

 neural arches of the last five cervical vertebrse expand 

 above into flattened, subquadrate, horizontal plates of 

 bone, with a rough tubercle in place of a spine : the zyga- 

 pophyses, 2, are unusually large. The perforated trans- 

 verse process sends a pleurapophysis, ^9?, downwards and 

 forwards, and a diapophysis, d^ backwards and outAvards, 

 in the third to the sixth cervicals inclusive : in the seventh 

 the diapophysial part alone is developed, and is imper- 

 forate. The spinous processes suddenly and considerably 

 increase in length in the first three dorsals, and attain 

 their greatest length in the fifth and sixth, after which 

 they gradually shorten to the thirteenth, and continue of 

 the same length to the last lumbar. The lumbar diapo- 

 physes are long, broad, and in close juxtaposition; the 

 last presents an articular concavity adapted to a corre- 

 sponding convexity on the fore part of the diapophysis of 

 the first sacral. The scapula, 51, is long and narrow, and 

 according to its length and obliquity of position the mus- 

 cles attached to it, which act upon the humerus, operate 

 with more vio'or, and to this bone the attention of the 

 bu^^er should be directed, as indicative of one of the good 

 points in a horse. The coracoid is reduced to a mere 

 confluent knob. The spine of the scapula, 51, has no 

 acromion. The humerus, 53, is remarkable for the size 

 and strength of tlie proximal tuberosities in which the 



