ANATOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 41 



ofifers matter for the reader's admiration. Considering that, the horse is 

 a beast of burden, man, were he designing a creature fitted for such uses, 

 would assuredly have sought to gain strength by the insertion of bone. 

 Bone, however, would have interfered with that agihty which, no less 

 than strength, is an attribute of the horse's body. The presence even of 

 a clavicle joining the shoulder to the thorax would have exposed a jump- 

 ing quadruped to repeated fractures. Nature, therefore, bound the parts 

 together by interlacing fibers. And to afford an idea of the marvelous 

 care bestowed on this arrangement, the following diagram is submitted 

 to the contemplation of the reader. 



SOME 07 THE MUSCLES WHICH ATTACH THE FOEE LIMB TO THE TRUNS. 



Three muscles have already been removed, viz., the panniculus carnosuB, the levator humeri, and the 

 latissimus dorsi. 



1. The trapezius. 2. The seratus magnus. 3. The subscapulo hyoideus. 4. The rhomboideus. 5. The 

 pectoralis anticus. 6. The anterior portion of the pectoralis maguus. 7. The pectoralis parvus. 8, The 

 pectoralis transversus. 



The rider, therefore, when mounted on a horse, is not only seated upon 

 fleshy and ligamentous fiber, and upheld by pliable bone based upon elas- 

 tic cartilage, but as the thorax is supported by the anterior extremity, he 

 actually swings upon the strongest and most yielding substance known 

 throughout animated nature. Could mortal ingenuity, by the exercise 

 of any force or duration of thought, have perfected so exquisite a work ? 

 But the mind is abased and humbled before the proofs of Superior Wis- 

 dom, when we find that all hitherto made known is but a part of the 

 lavish provision bestowed upon the perfection of God's most beautiful 

 gift to man. 



The bones within the fore limb are not self-sustaining. Remove their 

 coverings, and they will not retain their several places, but will fall in a 

 heap upon the earth. The fact proves that the osseous framewoA, 



