84 THE HORSE AND HIS EIDER. 



tion, to stagnate, producing (especially when caused by 

 the ignorant custom of washing the legs) disorganisation 

 and disease throughout the whole system, as the following 

 fact will exemplify. 



Several seasons ago almost every hunter in Leicester- 

 shire and Northamptonshire was afflicted by a combina- 

 tion of lumps, bumps, swelled legs, and cracked heels, 

 caused by the extraordinary wetness of the ground, and 

 the consequent ablutions of the legs. After the veteri- 

 nary surgeons had in vain nearly exhausted their phar- 

 macopoeia, the oldest and most experienced among them 

 directed that on no account should horses' legs, after 

 hunting, be washed; and wherever this plain, sensible 

 prescription was followed, all the symptoms just described 

 rapidly subsided. 



If the hunter, as is now-a-days almost invariably the 

 case, has been singed, the less he is excited and tor- 

 mented by cleaning (the main object of which, with 

 many strappers, seems to be to make the poor animal 

 crouch his back, bite his manger, and violently work all 

 his legs as if they were on a tread-mill) the better. 



At the expiration of about an hour white flannel 

 bandages should, however, be substituted for the coarse 

 ones, under which the dirt will then be found to 

 crumble away like warm sand. 



If his ears (the opposite extremities or antipodes of 



