2 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 



materials in every case, namely ; an active material 

 and several passive materials. 



5. — The active materials are the so called muscles 

 of the body which we popularly call flesh or ' lean' 

 meat. These muscles, which are attached to the 

 levers of the body, and move them, in doing so 

 always act in one and the same waj^ — namely, 

 by alternately lengthening and shortening. Of these 

 two movements, one is active^ the other passive. 

 It is the active movement, that of shortening, which 

 does the work. After a muscle has shortened, or, 

 as it is termed, contracted, it allows other forces to 

 pull it out or lengthen it and it passively/ submits to 

 being so lengthened. 



6. — All muscles are made up of countless bundles, 

 and these bundles are made up of fibres. These 

 fibres being about the same size in all cases, it 

 follows that the more of them the stronger will be 

 the muscle, hence the larger the muscle the stronger. 

 A muscle fibre (See Fig. 1. C D) is made up of a 

 number of squares placed one on the other as you 

 would place a pile of dice. These squares, on being 

 stimulated, change their shape, as seen in the 

 diagram. The power of changing their shape is 

 called muscular irritability, and resides somehow or 

 other in the muscle itself, or in other words every 

 fibre has irritability. This irritability is called forth 

 when a stimulant is applied. Various stimulants 

 will call it forth. If you see an animal that is 

 .newly killed and which has its skin removed, you 



