34 CONFORMATION OF 



termed, hacking. If no quickness in respiration appear, but 

 on trotting or galloping a sonorous noise be heard, it is 

 called roaring ; and though it constitutes no present disease, 

 yet it is the remains of a former affection ; for it even now 

 interferes with speedy action, and, in law, renders a horse 

 unsound or returnable. 



The tail, in the improved breeds of horses, is set on 

 high, which is the natural consequence of length in the 

 hinder quarters. It should, however, neither seem to be 

 swallowed up by the buttocks, nor yet to start out ungrace- 

 fully from the end of the back-bone, but should form a 

 graceful curve with the croup. 



As the fore extremities may be considered as especially 

 designed to receive and sustain the weight of the body, 

 so the hinder extremities may be regarded as the essential 

 propelling organs : since these last, having less to support, 

 are flexed into considerable angles, — which angles are ope- 

 rated on by masses of muscles of immense power. It is 

 also a curious but wise provision in the mechanism of the 

 limbs, that their angles should be reversed ; for, while the 

 scapula, or shoulderblade, inclines backward, the ilium, 

 or haunch-bone, is directed forward. (See Plate I. skel.) 

 The inclinations of the humerus or arm, and of the femur 

 or thigh are equally reversed ; and, in a slighter degree, the 

 same is observable in the corresponding bones immediately 

 below ; by which arrangement the trunk is suspended equally, 

 instead of falling backward or forward, as might have hap- 

 pened, had all the angles been in one direction. That the 

 hinder extremities are principally concerned in progression, 

 is again evident from the attention that nature pays to the 

 strength in all cases where great speed is required ; for let 

 the animal be ever so lightly framed in other respects, 

 yet great power will be always displayed in its hinder parts. 

 Thus, in blood-horses, which are derived in part from the 

 eastern breed, not only are the loins wide and the croup 

 long, but, viewed from behind, these horses will be found 

 wider in the thighs than even in the hips : and of all the 

 distinctive marks between the high and the low-bred horse, 

 this is the most striking and characteristic. A good judge, 

 under every disadvantage, immediately discovers a poi-tion 

 of breeding by this appearance of power in the muscles of 



