THOUGHTS ON HUNTERS 



to stumbling, just as much as the high carriage 

 favours blundering at fences, &c. A hunter that 

 has a lofty carriage of head — popularly designated 

 a star-gazer — is a most objectionable animal, for 

 reasons obvious to almost every horseman. The 

 conformation of the neck has a good deal to do 

 with the set on of the head, as well as its 

 carriage. Two forms of neck are an abomination, 

 namely, the ewe neck and the wry neck, both 

 terms being expressive of the shape. In the 

 former, the " crest " is concave, whereas in the 

 latter it is unduly convex. One does not want a 

 hunter to have either a thick bull-like neck and 

 heavy shoulders, nor yet one that is long and 

 weedy, there being a happy medium, which a 

 practised eye can at once detect. In turning 

 one's attention to the shoulders and other por- 

 tions of the fore-limbs, it is necessary to be 

 critical, and where distinctions are fine, as in 

 judging a large class of hunters, one must 

 be hypercritical; such hypercriticism, however, 

 must not be based upon faddism, but on deduc- 

 tions from comparison. Oblique shoulders, 

 provided that they are well muscled, and of goodly 

 length, are vastly superior to straight shoulders, 



5 A2 



