72 HINTS ON HORSEMANSHIP. 



restrain a horse. A chifney bit, as it pivots on the mouth- 

 piece, avoids this, its action is quite independent of the head- 

 stall, and precisely on the parts where it is originally placed. 

 The horse employs his tongue as a defence against the bit, 

 passively as a cushion to protect the more tender parts on 

 which the bit was intended to work, and actively he uses the 

 muscles of the tongue in resistance to it. This may be proved 

 by using a straight mouth-piece, or one arched upward or 

 downward, but without a porte. From under these a horse 

 will never withdraw his tongue; and he will go with a dead 

 bearing on the hand, though equal, that is not more on one 

 side of the mouth than the other. Even a very narrow porte, 

 not a quarter the width of the tongue, will suffice, when pres- 

 sure is used, to defeat this defence, and completely to engage 

 the tongue within the porte. But being then much com- 

 pressed, it will sustain a great part of the leverage, and the 

 horse will endeavour still more to make his tongue the 

 fulcrum of the bit, and to relieve his bars from that office, by 



