STUD BOOK. 157 



tells his driver that it is so. Sometimes the withers are 

 wrung, and the shoulders sadly galled, and the pain, which is 

 intense on level ground and with fair draught, becomes insup- 

 portable when he tugs up a steep acclivity. These things 

 should be examined into, and, if possible, rectified; for, 

 under such circumstances, cruelty may produce obstinacy and 

 vice. They who are accustomed to horses know what seem- 

 ingly trivial circumstances occasionally produce this vice. A 

 horse whose shoulders are raw, or have frequently been so, 

 will not start with a cold collar. When the collar has acquired 

 the warmth of the parts on which it presses, the animal will 

 go without reluctance. Some determined gibbers have been 

 reformed by constantly wearing a false collar, or strip of 

 cloth round the shoulders, so that the coldness of the usual 

 collar should never be felt; and others have been cured of 

 gibbing by keeping the collar on night and day, for the ani- 

 mal is not able to lie down completely at full length, which 

 the tired horse is always glad to do. 



Brrraa. 



This is either natural ferocity, or acquired from the teas- 

 ing play of stable-boys. When a horse is tickled and pinched 

 by thoughtless and mischevious youths, he will first pretend 

 to bite his tormentors; by degrees he will proceed farther, 

 and actually bite them, after that, he will be the first to chal- 

 lenge to the combat At length, this war, half playful and 

 half in earnest, becomes habitual to him, and degenerates 

 into absolute viciousness. It is not possible to enter the stall 

 of some horses without danger. A stallion addicted to biting 

 is a most formidable creature. He lifts the intruder-attacks 

 him with his feet-tramples upon him, and there are many 

 instances in which he effects irreparable mischief. A reso- 

 lute groom may escape. When he has once got firm hold of 

 the head of the horse, he may back him, or muzzle him, or 

 harness him; but he must be always on his guard. It is sel- 

 dom that anything can be done in the way of cure. Kind- 

 ness will aggravate the evil, and no degree of severity will 

 correct it " I have seen," says Professor Stewart, " biters 

 punished until they trembled in every joint, and were ready 

 to drop, but have never in any case known them cured by 

 this treatment, or by any other. The lash is forgotten in an 

 hour, and the horse is as ready and determined to repeat the 

 offence as before. He appears unable to resist the tempta- 

 tion, and in its worst form biting is a species of insanity." 



