130 BITS AND BITTING. 



dimension is sometimes so great in proportion, that if 

 coupled with a coarse, fleshy, short neck, the angle of 

 the jaw coming in contact with the latter, a jam ensues 

 before the head can be brought round to the proper 

 angle. But this is perhaps a less frequent, and cer- 

 tainly a less serious, occuiTcnce than another to which 

 we must now advert. 



A horse may have a moderate-sized or even a small 

 head, and the depth of jaw alluded to above may be 

 so trifling as not to offer the slightest impediment to 

 the former assuming any position that may be desired, 

 but the jaws may both converge inwards, instead of 

 diverging slightly, as they should; consequently the 

 space contained between the two jaws is narrowed in, 

 which prevents the neck fitting into this cavity to the 

 same extent as it will in a perfectly well-shaped head. 

 The angle of flection in such narrow-jawed horses is 

 very limited indeed, and becomes a serious impedi- 

 ment to the breaking-in and bitting of the animal. 



There is another case still worse than this, and not 

 unfrequently combined with it — in fact, the narrow- 

 ness of the jaws very frequently becomes its exciting- 

 cause. Most persons conversant with horses must be 

 aware that certain glands lie j ust under the angles of 

 the two jaws, and run up in the direction of the ear. 

 They are the seat of the affection peculiar to young 

 animals known under the name of strangles. Now 

 it is by no means unfrequent, especially amongst the 

 commoner kind of horses, to find these glands large 

 and flabby in their textures. With well-bred and well- 

 formed animals it is often very difficult to find them 

 at all under the skin. Sometimes the abnormal size 

 of these glands is evidently constitutional, sometimes 



