1 F8 ON THE HAIR. 



" On the other hand, the appearance of the hair may be 

 adduced as a sign of internal derangement ; such a horse 

 'has a staring coat,' is an expression in the mouth of the 

 owner, and he generally has recourse to a remedy which 

 restores its smooth and healthy aspect, without knowing at 

 all the connection between the one and the other. The fact 

 is, that this is one of the most remarkable instances we have 

 of the sympathy between the skin and alimentary canal ; 

 and that we might, ad infinitum, bestow our labor upon the 

 former without effect, unless we were at the same time to 

 direct our attention to the latter. 



" But there are other causes that may give rise to a rough 

 coat. Simply taking a horse into an atmosphere colder than 

 the one he has been habitually exposed to, will make the hair 

 stare ; even leaving the stable open to a current of air will 

 do it, which the advocate for a warm stable is no stranger to. 

 Now, this can be no other than the effect of contraction, not 

 of the skin itself, but of the muscular fibres which adhere to 

 it — the paniculus carnosus. 



" What I have just particularized are not to be confounded 

 with that variety of rough coat which a horse acquires during 

 the cold season at grass ; for this consists in an increased 

 growth of the hair ; and hence, it is a fact well known, that 

 a hunter stabled with a long, staring coat in the autumn, can- 

 not be made to look smooth and sleek by any subsequent 

 treatment. Now and then it happens, from some cause or 

 other, the action of the cutaneous vessels being disordered, 

 and the shedding process arrested or but imperfectly per- 

 formed, the old coat, or some parts of it, remain on until 

 the second time of casting ; when this is the case, the hair 

 is said to be set. 



" It is a well known fact, that an animal will vary the 

 length and quality of his coat, according to the temperature 

 of the climate into which he is transplanted. Every horse- 

 man knows the change that can be wrought in the coat of 

 his horse by warm clothing, to need more than the bare men- 

 tion of it here, as confirmatory of this point. Heat, then, is 



