8 PROGRESSION. ADAPTATION OF THE LLMBS. 



certainly originates in a disagreement between the fixing of the two upon the 

 body, either as to the situation, or want of muscular strength at the place of 

 joining. Such a horse is a stumbler, and when he trots away from us, we 

 can see nearly as much of his fore legs as of his hind ones ; in the straight- 

 built, well-set limbed horse, the fore legs are then concealed from our sight by 

 the hind ones. I own this is with me a grand criterion for judging as to a 

 horse's capability of going over the ground. In racing, or indeed any run- 

 ning, the fore legs are then brought closer together, the hind legs rather wider 

 (so in leaping), as we see in greyhounds, hares, deer, and all other fleet 

 creatures. 



Such as I have described is the act of progression with all horses, but in 

 various degrees, according to their sizes fas with the coach-horse, saddle-horse, 

 poney ^ ; four such efforts having called mto action all the bones of the body, 

 including more or less that of the head, tail, and neck, according to the pace 

 or other circumstances. — See Section 11. Hence it must be clear, that to 

 perform this duty of progression, or getting forward, properly, as regards 

 either the length of time he sustains it, or the quickness of performance, 

 weight, or velocity, the limbs must be adapted to the kind of work the horse 

 has to perform and to each other, whether that be in harness, on the turf, the 

 chase, or the road. 



5. We do not find this adaptation of the limbs so much in the amount of 

 covering the bones may have on them, as in the size and proportion of these, 

 and the suitable manner in which they are fastened together ; as may be seen 

 in those horses (blood) where tendon supplies the place of muscle, and most 

 strength resides in the smallest compass ; and, as may be proved by the ob- 

 struction to his paces, which is always observable in the horse burthened with 

 very muscular shoulders. Equally true is it, that, after we have approved of 

 the proportions of a pair of horses in respect to bone and built, certain powers 

 of going or lastingness are frequently discovered to be possessed by one so 

 much beyond his match, that we are compelled to admit those powers do re- 

 side in something else than in his built. Superior health, sound wind, cour- 

 ^S^i give this strength, with speed, and lastingness ; the bones being then 

 well cased together and strongly supported by their immediate covering, have 

 full and fair play.* But wherever they be fundamentally ill-adapted to each 

 other, in whatever degree this escapes our observation, the muscles and tendi- 

 nous parts adapt themselves in some measure to that lamentable kind of form, 

 but which no filling up, or after-accommodation of the parts to each other, can 

 completely eradicate, though it may he concealed from our view. The mus- 

 cle that is so perverted rises up in the middle preturnaturally, as if some sprain 

 or other had caused that appearance ; the contiguous parts, consequently, un- 

 dergo greater fatigue than, in the event of finer symmetry, would have fallen 

 to their share : and the extraordinary friction or working thereof, occasions, at 

 a day more or less remote, the exhaustion of its powers (see Section 21), and 

 the lodgement of acrimonious matter in the cellular membrane, which ap- 

 pears in tumour, abscess, &c. This protuberant appearance of the muscle 

 is most visible at the stifle [N. 30], and on the shoulder [M. 16], just above 

 the elbow. 



A mure minute inquiry, however, on those points would lead me away — 

 too far from my main purpose, at present ; I therefore return to notice, in the 

 first place, the structure of the legs of such horses as, by their untoward posi- 



• Firing is supp«seu to restore derangement of the integuments, by causing inflammation 

 end rcniraction thereof upon the bone, so as to embrace it more tightly. This is effected Ly 

 much I 'f the muscle being taken up into the system, or sloughing off ia the cure ; as well as the 

 Cimirsjiiion of the flexor tendon (back sinew] and its sheath. 



