HUNTERS 209 



One of the advantages of turning horses out to 

 grass, especially after they have been ill, and 

 have reached the convalescent stage, is that they 

 are enabled to swallow some earth, which is 

 necessary for the due regulation of the stomach, 

 and the want of which is a frequent cause of 

 indigestion : but care must be taken that it is not 

 of a gritty, sandy nature, which is of itself 

 prejudicial. 



It used to be annoying to see an animal, 

 when it was allowed to have its head loose for 

 a few minutes in order to pick a little sweet 

 grass, proceed instead to take several bites of 

 earth, filling its mouth full, raising its nose in 

 the air, and champing it with most evident 

 satisfaction until the saliva and mud trickled out 

 of its mouth. At length it dawned upon me that 

 the horse did so because it felt the want of it ; 

 and then it soon became self-evident that when at 

 grass a horse must pick up a certain amount of 

 earth, when close grazing. The notion being 

 once started, further observation soon confirmed 

 the truth of it ; and it is almost invariably the 

 case that any horse which has been long stabled 

 will prefer, when he first gets the chance, to take 

 some mouthfuls of mud rather than the sweetest 

 grass, if he has long been without the coveted 

 morsel. In further illustration of this. Speculum, 

 formerly the famous sire at Moorlands, used to 

 suffer much from indigestion, until the idea was 

 formed of giving him some chalk to nibble at ; 

 and for the later years of his life he was invari- 

 ably supplied with this luxury, with much 

 benefit to his health. 



It was interesting to find, when racing in 

 Spain, that here, too, was the same notion, and 



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