192 HORSES AND ROADS. 



advantage, and which should make their chase all 

 the more exciting. Perhaps people are afraid that 

 then they would never be run down at all, or 

 even viewed. Foxes run stoutly, and some of them 

 manage to outrun both hounds and huntsmen with- 

 out the aid of so much as a sock or slipper, and so 

 do the deer on Exmoor that have rougher ground 

 to deal with than most people imagine ; yet we do 

 not hear much about their going into hospital. The 

 deer that got so knocked up on the occasion cited 

 could not have been in condition, or ' fit ' for a hard 

 run, and must have been prostrated by simple over- 

 exertion. Should he be brought forward after many 

 years as evidence that horses require shoeing ? Fair 

 argument and common sense do not appear to be 

 entirely necessary to everyone who is determined 

 not to be convinced. 



However, as regards those sharp flints, Mr. 

 Douglas has informed us that the frog does not fear 

 them. Colonel Burdett says that the natural sole 

 is almost impenetrable, and so hard and strong that 

 it protects the sensible sole from all harm ; and 

 Osmer tells us that all feet exposed to hard objects 

 become more obdurate thereby if the sole be never 

 pared. Now, has ' Herts ' considered that our shoe 

 does not cover either the frog or more than the edge 

 of the sole, and, mutilated as they are by the knife, 

 that the sharp stones must continually be reaching 

 them, and that still horses do not get cut by flints 

 in these parts ? Where they get cut and crippled is 

 on the brittle crust, and sometimes on the outer rim 



