24 STRUCTURES- OF THE BODY. 



climates in the East, native ponies which have Httle 

 or no admixture of Arab blood, have legs as clean and 

 hard as any that are to be met with in the Desert. 

 The nature of a horse's hoofs, which can always be 

 determined by inspection, or by using the " drawing 

 knife," will generally afford us a safe guide by which 

 to judge of the quality of his bone. Thus we find that 

 animals which have been reared amid damp surroundings 

 and on succulent food, will, as a rule, be prone to bony 

 enlargements, and will have flat feet of soft horn. We 

 cannot fail to notice this, if we compare the horses of 

 the English fen counties with those bred on high, dry 

 land ; or animals raised in the arid plains of the Punjab 

 and Deccan, with those of swampy Lower Bengal. Hence, 

 if, when judging an animal about the history of which 

 we know nothing, and which does not appear to have 

 undergone enough work to test the soundness of his legs, 

 we find that he has weak, flat hoofs, we shall not err, 

 in the large majority of cases, by concluding that his 

 bone is of inferior quality. Although dryness of climate 

 is always a favourable condition for horses, excessive 

 heat diminishes the size of the bone of the indigenous 

 animals : a circumstance which may, to a great extent, 

 account for the fact that horses bred in tropical climates, 

 however hardy and wiry they may be, are very rarely of 

 a weight-carrying type. 



The popular term " bone " refers to the circumference 

 of the legs below the knees and hocks, as compared to the 

 weight they have to carry. As the limbs of the domestic 

 horse, especially when used at fast paces and when jumping, 

 have far more strain put upon them, than if the animal 

 were in a wild state, the judicious breeder will try to 

 obtain as much " bone " as possible, by taking ad- 

 vantage of the all-important principles of variation and 

 heredity. This necessity is inculcated by the proverbial 

 saying that " a horse is as old as his legs." The 

 bones of the limbs, like tendons and ligaments, may 



