394 NAVIX ox THE HOESE. 



The next are five or six pairs of branches, which are sent to 

 the loins. 



Just below the last bone of the loins the posterior aorta 

 divides into two pairs of arteries, called the external and in- 

 ternal iliac arteries. 



The internal divides into three branches, which are distrib- 

 uted to the quarters, the rectum, or last gut, and the muscles 

 of the tail. 



The external iliac passes from its origin, outward and down- 

 ward, into the muscles of the inside of the thigh, giving off, in 

 its course, a number of branches, which are sent to the parts 

 through which it passes. After reaching the upper or proper 

 thigh, the main trunk takes the name of the femoral artery, 

 which passes obliquely clown the haunch, until it comes oppo- 

 site the head of the lower thigh-bone, or tibia, when it branches 

 into arteries, called the anterior (forward) and ijosterior (back- 

 ward) tibial arteries. The latter is the smaller of the two, and 

 passes down the back of the thigh to the hough, where it divides 

 into two branches which supply muscles engaged in flexing 

 the foot. A branch of this artery runs as far down as the 

 lower end of the cannon-bone, and ends in many small twigs. 



The anterior tibial artery, near the stifle-joint, gives off the 

 inguinal artery, or artery of the groin, and several other 

 smaller branches, to supply the parts about the joint, and the 

 muscles below it. From the neighborhood of the stifle, it 

 passes down the front of the thigh to the hough, below which it 

 changes its name to metatarsal artery, and about two-thirds of ' 

 the way down the cannon, it gets to the back of the bone, and, 

 a little above the fetlock, ends in three branches, w^hich divide 

 into many small branches, to supply the pasterns and foot. 



THE VEINS. 



I have described the arteries as starting at the heart and 

 proceeding from it to every part of the animal body, and their 

 use to carry the blood from the heart outward. Xow, as the 



