THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 51 



the least yielding or softness m any part. The matter 

 contameu in them was no less extraordinary, the sto- 

 mach being filled with acorns, sloes, oak leaves, and 

 such other things as he could pick up about the hedges, 

 some green and some withered, for it was towards the 

 latter end of the year when this occurred. The con- 

 tents of the intestines were chiefly leaves, neither weli 

 chewed nor digested, with a mixture of grass, but there 

 was little or no grass in his stomach, but chiefly acorn- 

 cups and leaves, which was distended to its utmost 

 extent, so as to keep the muscles at their full stretch, 

 by which their action, which is necessary in digestion, 

 was altogether at a stand. 



" This horse, it seems, had been turned to grass in 

 a very rank aftermath. Here he had become so sur- 

 feited that he came to loathe his grass, and his appetite 

 being depraved, he had taken to those things which 

 were bitter and sour to the taste, which generally ag- 

 gravated his disorder by their restringent quality. The 

 contents both of his stomach and intestines when rub- 

 bed between the hands, crumbled like dung dried in 

 the sun, without possessing the least drop of moisture 

 or any ill savour ; for there was no room for air to be 

 pent up in them, from whence arises that stench that 

 occurs in opening the intestines of dead animals ; and 

 indeed it was somewhat extraordinary that he lived to 

 come to this extremity, when the muscular action 

 of the stomach, and the peristaltic motion of the in- 

 testines, by which the expulsion of the excrements is 

 forwarded, must in all probability have been lost for 

 several days. 



" There seems to be no other reason for his holding 

 out so long, but that he was in all respects extremely 

 sound, and little else was to be seen but a beginning 

 inflammation in some oi' the internal parts, which, 



