HUNTERS. 



325 



or when going through a narrow passage, for instance. It is 

 infinitely better to stop at home than to hunt at the risk of 

 others. If a man rides a kicker, the least he can do is to keep 

 as far away from other people as he can. Some, luckily not 

 many, selfish creatures put a red bow on their horse's tail or 

 place the flat of their hand, with the palm to the rear, behind 

 their back in a crowd, in order to get more room than is their 

 due, even when they are riding a perfectly quiet animal ! 



Fig. 219. Wire. 



My experience leads me to think that in the large majority 

 of cases, when a horse kicks at hounds, he does so because he 

 is unused to them, and is consequently afraid of them ; and 

 when a horse kicks at another horse, he does so out of revenge 

 for having been kicked himself on a previous occasion. In the 

 former case, the kick is an effort to remove an obnoxious 

 object out of the animal's vicinity; in the latter, it is an 

 attempt to inflict injury. The necessity of accustoming horses 

 to hounds, or at least to dogs, before taking them into the 



