PRECAUTIONS IN MOULTING SEASON 165 



to increase the living power, in how far this is to be 

 effected without risking the health and life of the animal 

 consists the whole art of grooming. It remains, then, 

 now to point out how and when a groom is to be aware 

 that he is pushing this system beyond what Nature, 

 with all the precautions of art, will bear. 



The distinguishing symptoms of foulness in a hunter 

 are these : He appears unweU without any specific 

 disease. His mouth is hot, his eyes look dull, and 

 sometimes yellow. His coat loses some of its usual 

 gloss, and stares between the hip bones, and some- 

 times on the poll of the neck. His appetite frequently 

 remains good ; but he is more than usually anxious 

 for his water. His heels are scurvy, and sometimes 

 crack. He stales often, but a little at a time. His 

 urine is highly coloured, and his excrements hard, and 

 often covered with a slimy fluid. He is dull when at 

 exercise, and frequently coughs without any appear- 

 ance of having taken cold. He loses flesh, and looks 

 dry in his skin. His legs and ears are often cold, the 

 latter being frequently found wet after exercise, and 

 sometimes deprived of part of their covering. His 

 crest falls ; the whole tone of his system appears 

 relaxed ; and, without his groom exactly knowing 

 why, he is not the horse he was a week ago. 



Bleeding (or what the grooms call " changing the 

 blood ") used to be the favourite system pursued in 

 this case ; but I have long since abolished bleeding 

 in my stable, except in cases of inflammatory attacks 

 or when horses have been over marked with hounds 

 — in the former of which it cannot be done too 



