MOHXTINH COLTS: WELL BRACED LIMBS. ] \ 



third or fourtli month, she shoultl not be worked so hard as usual, and froirj 

 this i)eriod to the day of her toahng, the duty to be required of her should be 

 less and less every week. Nor, on the other hand, is complete idleness lie- 

 fitting her situation : in cases where slie has not been used to hart! labour, a 

 run at glass, in a paddock, with access to an outhouse or stable, as it leaves 

 to her option the quantity of exercise her strength is capable of sustaining, 

 would be found most conducive to the best purposes of nature. Her food 

 should be of the first quality, and regular, and, though full enough, should not 

 be too much. Occasionally, she may be oflCher feed, during the "time," but 

 she does not therefore require " physickinfj," nor coaxing to eat. Great care 

 should he taken that her l)ody is emi)tied regularly, that no derangement takn 

 place either way; and that if opening physic is required at all, aloes is not in 

 her case the best that can be prescribed for that purpose, since they act most- 

 ly upon the intestines lying immediately in vhe vicinity of the foal. An 

 opening draught or drench should be substituted for the pill, as its operation 

 begins sooner. 



A very general cause of mis-shapen limbs is the placing upon younkerstoo 

 great weights at first, whereby the houghs or the knees are thrown together 

 particularly when the animal is constructed with the fore ainl hind legs dis- 

 proportioned to each other, as noticed at sectiotiS 9 and 10. Splents and 

 sprains are the inevitable consequences of mounting colts, &c. too early in 

 life; and hollow back is oftener induced by this premature error than existing 

 originally. As if all this were not enough, many breeders nearly starve their 

 young ones until they are brought into use; whereby they b»'come deficient 

 in solidity of bone and quantity of muscle, if they do not imbibe some internal 

 or constitutional malaily, and the event of their limbs growing mis-shapen is 

 no longer left to chance. 



16. Notwithstanding all that has been said and done, little would avail the 

 finest proportions of the bt^nes towards the formation of fine- shaped limbs, 

 least of aii to symmetry of the whole horse, but for the seemingly adventitious 

 circumstance of the covering with which they are immediately invested j and 

 which, embracing tightly several bones, and connecting them together, con- 

 stitutes a limb. Some of these coverings are confined to the joints only, hold- 

 ing them in position as near as the Creator designed them, unless accident 

 (of parentage, of birth, or misusage), as before described, should induce them 

 to a perpetual strain, and they enlarge at these joints in spite of the next or 

 universal covering of the bones: this is membrane (of which more shortly,) 

 the uses whereof on the bone may be illustrated by taking a stocking of gi;>od 

 length, and having filled it with pebbles of its own size, and tying the end 

 tightly, a stick or club is proiluced of some degree of flexibility resembling a 

 Umb and its joints. If the tying be not performed well, by bracing the st(Kk- 

 ing to its utmost, the flexibility of certain parts (or joints) of the limb will be 

 greater: it will possess less strength at the joints when bent, and be liable to 

 give way or break unless supported by some other covering. It is easy to per- 

 ceive that the horse which has those coverings in the highest perfection would 

 move his limbs more correctly after the fashion they were designed for, than 

 he which constantly strained them out of their places. He who was endowed 

 with the first-mentioned quality in perfection would be considered a sinewy 

 right-built horse ; the second kind 1 have already depicted in section 10, where 

 rhe houghs are described as kee[)ing those integuments in a perpetual state i>l 

 derangement, straining or twisting them in such a manner that constitutional 

 enlargement at the joints is the consequence. 



At the ends of all bones, a yielding subi:tance, in appearance like bone it 

 self, prevents friction, and by its elasticity rives a spring to the animal's steps. 

 The ease of a horse's going mainly depends upon this substance, which re 



