268 THE HORSE 



Some writers assert that cribbing is hereditary, and 

 also that it is more frequently transmitted by the sire 

 than by the dam. Collin, a French veterinary surgeon, 

 declares that he traced the descendants of a famous 

 Norman stallion and found that forty-five of them were 

 cribbers, and that some of them developed the habit 

 even as foals. Dr. C. A. Matthew, a Pennsylvania 

 "vet," relates the case of a Percheron stallion which 

 in one season, he says, got eighty-two foals, all but 

 four of which were cribbers before they were a year 

 old. The stallion himself was free from this habit 

 or vice, but, upon investigation. Dr. Matthew found 

 that the dam of the stallion was a cribber and had 

 become such at a very early age. 



However, we need more evidence on the subject. It 

 is an important subject, for if cribbing is hereditary it 

 cannot be a mere trick or habit, as the best authorities 

 now believe, but must be the result of some diseased 

 or abnormal condition. 



WEAVING 



Weaving, like cribbing, is a habit taken up by 

 nervous, restless, and especially by idle horses. The 

 weaver swings his head rapidly from side to side, with 

 the motion of a pendulum, and often he does this with 

 so much energy that he sways on his forefeet. A 

 weaver, like an " air-snapper, " prefers to have his head 

 projecting over something, such as the lower half of 

 the door of his box stall, when he weaves. There is 

 no cure for this habit, except to divert the mind of the 

 horse and give him new surroundings, and this treat- 



