410 TEGUMENTAL SYSTEM. 



skin in the Negro is at first red — from its blood : still, in the 

 course of time the cicatrix assumes a dark hue, and I believe, in 

 almost every instance, ultimately acquires a black tinge. 



Of the Hair. 



The hair is the covering Nature has provided for the skin of 

 animals to protect it from cold, heat, and external injury : it is to 

 be regarded as their clothes, being in general suited both in quan- 

 tity and quality to the temperature of the chmate they inhabit. 

 The cutaneous surface in man, being for the most part but thinly 

 furnished with hair, possesses a degree of sensibility, and of rela- 

 tion to surrounding agents, which that of a quadruped is ex- 

 cluded from ; and in this respect, says Bichat, whose senti- 

 ments these are, life is less active in the latter. In animals, the 

 functions of reproduction and digestion constitute the principal 

 if not the only sources of pleasure*. 



Quality. — The horse is clad with hair of two kinds or quali- 

 ties : the one is that fine soft material which clothes the body 

 generally, and which we expressively distinguish by the term 

 coat ; the other, vulgarly known as horse-hair, is of a coarser 

 and stronger nature, is confined to particular parts, and appears 

 to have been added rather for the purposes of ornament and de- 

 fence than those of vesture and interception. The mane, for in- 

 stance, forms a shield to the neck in combat, and for this reason 

 is more luxuriant in the male than in the female : it is likewise 

 (as well as the foretop, which is a continuation of it) an orna- 

 ment'!'. The tail is not only a handsome appendage, but it in 

 some measure supplies the deficiency of hands, in switching oft' 

 insects and other irritants within its reach. The tufts of hair 

 sprouting from the fetlocks, defend those parts from contusion 

 when forcibly depressed in action, and serve, at the same time, 

 as a protection to the heels. The long bristly hairs standing 

 erect from the muzzle and eyelids, are so many tangents of 

 communication with the delicate organs of feeling into which 

 they are implanted. 



Thickness. — The coat itself is not of an uniform thickness or 

 consistence in all parts. Upon the sides, the back, loins, and 

 quarters, and upon the shoulders and arms, it is thick and 

 abundant ; but upon the inner parts of the thighs, and under the 



* Anatomic Gdn^rale, toin. iv, p. 496. 



t A singular variety in the production of inane presents itself in a bay 

 gcldinj);, belonging to the Artillery. Out of the back, posterior to the part 

 covered by the saddle, is growing, for the space of three inches, a row of 

 horse-hairs, precisely similar in colour and quality to the mane (to wit, 

 black), several of which exceed four inches in length. 



