164 



HORSES AND RIDIXG. 



Fig. 24. 



There are popularly said to be two sorts of spavins ; 

 a bog or blood spavin, and a bone spavin, but I tbink 

 that there are two distinct species of bone spavins 

 differing from each other. 



I will first describe the bone spavin, as it is the 

 most common and the most 

 injurious. Standing then in 

 / front of the horse, and look- 

 ing between his fore legs, 

 the hind legs "will look some- 

 thing like what I have 

 drawn in the figure. If the 

 hocks are well formed and 

 free from unsoundness, the 

 outline will go down the leg 

 to the fetlock without any 

 excrescence or lump ; if the 

 hock is spavined there w^ill 

 be an excrescence where I 

 have drawn it at a, one of 

 the figures representing a 

 hock with the larger sort 

 of bone spavin, and the other with the smaller one. 

 The larger one is easier to detect in this position 

 than the smaller one. 



I cannot describe it better than by saying it looks 

 as if someone had taken half a walnut shell, and 

 inserted it under the skin in that place ; sometimes 

 it is much bigger than that, and about the size of a 



