S6 AMERICAN FARMER'S HORSE BOOK. 



" There is, at all times, a singular change taking place in 

 the outer covering of the animal. There is a constant alter- 

 ation and renewal of every part of it, but it adheres to the 

 true skin, through the medium of the pores, and also nu- 

 merous little eminences or projections, which seem to be 

 prolongations of the nerves of the skin. The cuticle is it- 

 self insensible, but one of its most important functions is to 

 protect and defend the parts beneath, which are so often ex- 

 posed to a morbid sensibility. 



"Beneath the cuticle is a thin, soft substance, through 

 which the pores and eminences of the true skin pass. It is 

 termed the rete mucosum, from its web-like structure, and its 

 soft, mucous consistence. Its office is to cover the minute 

 vessels and nerves in their way from the cutis to the cuticle. 

 It is also connected with the color of the skin. In horses 

 with white hair, the rete mucosum is white; it is brown in 

 those of a brown color; black in the black, and in patches of 

 different colors with those the hue of whose integument varies. 

 Like the cuticle, it is reproduced after abrasion or other injury. 



"The cutis, or true skin, lies beneath the rete mucosum. 

 It is decidedly of a fibrous texture, elastic, but with difficulty 

 lacerated, exceedingly vascular, and highly sensitive. It is 

 the substance which is converted into leather w^hen removed 

 from the body, and binds together the different parts of the 

 frame. In some places it does this literally, arid clings so 

 closely to the substance beneath that it scarcely admits of 

 any motion. This is the case about the forehead and the 

 back, while upon the face, the sides, and flanks, it hangs in 

 loosened folds. In the parts connected with progression it 

 is folded into various duplicatures, that the action of the 

 animal may admit of the least possible obstruction. The 

 cutis is thinnest and most elastic on those parts that are 

 least covered with hair, or where the hair is altogether de- 

 ficient, as the lips, the muzzle, and the inside of the flanks. 

 Whatever is the color of the rete mucosum, the true skin is 

 of a pale white. In fact the cutis has no connection with 

 the color of the hair. * * * 



