SPEAIN OF SUSPENSORY LIGAMENT. 279 



as force is operating ; and the instant it is not, they, through 

 their elasticity, again recover their short lengths, and so raise 

 the sesamoid bones into their places. This descent and ascent 

 of the sesamoids is not to he compared with that imperceptible 

 and disputed motion of the splint bones ; on the contrary, it is 

 a demonstrable and beautiful descending and ascending motion ; 

 a playing up and down, after the manner of a spring of most 

 elastic and exquisite workmanship, imparting at every step the 

 horse takes its anti-concussive influence to every part of his 

 frame. Watch the long and elastic fetlocks of the Arabian or 

 race-horse as he is cantering upon turf, and at every bound he 

 makes will the tufts of hair from those joints be seen dipping 

 upon the ground, though, while the animal is standing still, they 

 may be some inches removed from the surface; nothing can 

 evince more beautifully and plainly than this the movements of 

 the fetlocks. 



" The attaching band or ligament upon which the sesamoids 

 repose in their descent, and depend for their re-ascent, is the 

 suspensory. And in order to show what proportion of the 

 superincumbent weight these bones sustain, or rather how in- 

 sufficient the pastern is without their aid to support the burden, 

 we have only to cut the suspensory ligament through; that 

 done, the horse is in real truth broken down; the feet slip 

 forward and the toes turn up, while the fetlocks bend down 

 upon the ground. Not so after division of the flexor tendons ; 

 we occasionally sever them by way of remedy for knuckling 

 over, and all that results in the enabling or forcing the animal 

 to set his heel upon the ground. Once divide the suspensory 

 ligament, however, and no power left is able to sustain the 

 pasterns erect. The suspensory ligament is therefore one of 

 the main-springs of the machine in action; one of the chief 

 of those beautiful contrivances which, while they save the leg- 

 bones from being smashed to pieces under the weight and shocks 

 they have to sustain at every bound and leap the animal makes, 

 insures his rider ease and safety to his journey's end." 



This quotation is very eloquent, but unfortunately the idea 

 it conveys is incorrect in every particular. In the first place, 

 the sesamoids do not sustain any part of the weight of the 

 animal's body, being placed external to the bony skeleton, 

 having no bones either immediately above or below, being, in 



