Polytechnic Institute. 2 \ 7 



chickens ; but not among non-riders. On the other hand, if 

 we inspect the very small minority of Englishmen who prac- 

 tically interest themselves in horses, we shall find men of 

 marvellous enthusiasm for and devotion to the subject in 

 which their lives are wrapped up. No detail connected with 

 horses is too trivial for them ; and no information too dry. 

 But we don't meet them every day, or in every crowd. 



About this time I went up for the veterinary fellowship 

 examination, and obtained the right to put F.R.C.V.S. after 

 my name. Members of the Royal College of Veterinary Sur- 

 geons are eligible for this examination after they have been 

 in practice for at least five years. 



In the autumn of this year I gave, in the Regent Street 

 Polytechnic Institute, a lecture on Animal Photography, 

 which I illustrated, principally, by magic lantern slides of 

 the photographs which have since appeared in The Points 

 of the Horse ; and had a large and interested audience. 

 When I had done my talk and was about to depart, a gen- 

 tleman came up to me, and introduced himself as a photo- 

 grapher who had devoted a great deal of his time to the 

 portraiture of horses. He said a lot of flattering things about 

 my work, and, as I had mentioned that I was going to bring 

 out a book on equine conformation, he, in the kindest pos- 

 sible manner, offered to give me the use of any or all of his 

 extensive collection. Since that evening, Mr Frank Haes, for 

 that is his name, and I have been fast friends. I found that 

 he had preceded me in the adoption of the idea, that, for the 

 sake of comparison, animals should be * taken ' in strict pro- 

 file ; although I believe I was the first to insist that, as a rule, 

 a horse looks best in a photograph when he is more or less 

 placed against the sky. Mr Haes was certainly the pioneer 

 of animal photography and the fine work which he did in that 

 line, during the old wet-plate days, testifies to his great tech- 

 nical skill, and true artistic feeling. I got from him, among 

 other subjects, photographs of Diophantus, winner of the 

 Two Thousand Guineas in 1861 ; of Caractacus, winner of the 



