THE ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FOOT. 259 



cipally in reference to the latter that we castrate ; and as 

 we inchne to regulate the form between the masculine or 

 the feminine character, so we castrate early or late. 



Puberty in both horses and mares takes place, if they have 

 been well fed and housed, as early as the fifth year : neither 

 does it appear that the mare is more early in this respect 

 than the horse. Before that period, the change of the tem- 

 porary for the permanent set of teeth is confirmed ; but all 

 those characters commence in the male which are to dis- 

 tinguish him from the female after this period. 



The adult period in both sexes may be considered as the 

 sixth year, when the height of the animal is complete ; and 

 it is between the fourth and fifth year that the colt andjilly 

 are translated into horse and mare in the breeders' vocabu- 

 lary. 



Temperament is not confined to man, but is extended to 

 all our domestic animals, and to none more than the horse. 



THE ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE 



FOOT. 



The foot of the horse presents a mechanism admirably 

 adapted to the habits of the animal ; for in the horse that 

 complexity of structure, exhibited in the numerous pha- 

 langes of other quadrupeds, is found united in one (see 

 Skel.). From the various circumstances to which we sub- 

 ject this creature, such as keeping him in stables, riding 

 him upon hard roads, and the attachment of iron shoes, 

 the feet become peculiarly susceptible of disease. At birth, 

 the horny parts of the feet are found less evolved than 

 most other of the external organs ; were they more per- 

 fected, their hard surfaces might injure the mother: at this 

 early period the pasterns are long and upright, and instead 

 of the extremities ending, as in the adult, in a broad ex- 

 tended base, they are pointed in front, and present only 

 the rudiments of a frog. The bones immediately belonging 

 to the foot are two, the coffin and the navicular (see Plate X. 

 Fig 1 . d and e) : the little pastern, or coronary bone, 

 which articulates with both, is also partly hidden within 

 the hoof. The coffin hone {Plate X. Fig 1 . d) corre- 

 sponds in shape to the anterior part of the hoof : in front it 



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