THE NECK, THE HEAD, 'ETC. 143 



"She reader will perceive, from the digression into 

 which we have been led here, that the question of 

 hitting cannot he considered separately from those of 

 distribution of weight, carriage, and action ; and it 

 was in order to avoid erroneous impressions on this 

 very point that we have thought it best to defer 

 up to this moment all mention of those peculiarities 

 of the interior construction of the horse's mouth 

 which, taken together, constitute, so far as this organ 

 itself is concerned, what is called a hard or a soft 

 mouth. 



There are two ways of expressing what a soft mouth 

 is ; we may either say this horse goes well on a light 

 bit which may be mainly a consequence of good car- 

 riage, temper, &c. or we may say, a light bit will pro- 

 bably suit this horse best, because it has a thin tongue, 

 high and sharp bars, a wide tongue-channel, and fine 

 lips. But, in truth, the relative thickness or thinness 

 of the tongue is the main point to be considered, be- 

 cause, as has been already pointed out, the height of 

 the bars is very nearly the same in all horses, and the 

 width of the tongue- channel always bears a certain 

 proportion to it. No doubt the bars have in some in- 

 stances a flat and in others a sharp or convex upper 

 surface, which, together with the greater or less fleshi- 

 ness of the lips, makes a great difference ; but in the 

 end it comes to this, Does the tongue fill up its channel 

 merely to the brim, projecting only a few lines over the 

 surface of the bars, and therefore permitting the mouth- 

 piece to exert a certain degree of pressure on the lat- 

 ter ? And this we would call a naturally soft mouth, 

 so far as interior conformation goes. 



A hard mouth, on the contrary, will be one in which 



