THE EQUIDJE IN GENERAL. 191 



economical or to sporting pursuits, more than to 

 natural history, we shall, with a few exceptions, 

 noticed particularly in our remarks on the domestic 

 horse, refrain from details which already abound in 

 other publications avowedly written for the purpose, 

 and treating the questions at full length ; we can- 

 not, however, refrain from offering to the reader two 

 plates of the horse, one representing the skeleton of 

 the animal, and the other the appearance of the ex- 

 ternal muscles ; the former an example of the solid 

 elegance of the frame, upon which the tendons and 

 muscles act like levers ; the other a great surface of 

 the muscles themselves, in their beautiful disposi- 

 tion for effecting the manifold purposes they are 

 destined to perform. To have numbered and named 

 the many parts, would have led us into the veteri- 

 nary science, foreign to our more immediate purpose, 

 and to the extent we would here give details, readily 

 found in every Encyclopaedia and Hippiatric trea- 

 tises, explanations must have proved unsatisfactory 

 to !;he reader. 



For reasons already offered in the introductory 

 pages of this volume, we divide the Linnaean genus 

 Equus into three sections, whereof the first contains 

 the Horses properly so called, the second the Asi- 

 nine group as it was separated by Mr. Gray, with 

 the exception of the South African striped species, 

 which have characters sufficiently distinct to form a 

 third. 



