32 HOUSE POKTEAITUKE. 



the air necessary to feed the lungs. The jowl appears as 

 if carved, widening till you can thrust your clenched 

 hand easily between the sharp jawbones. There is a cor- 

 responding widening of the forehead, giving plenty of 

 room for a large brain, not alone the source of wisdom in 

 a horse, but the centre of the nerve force, that wonderful 

 something which we cannot explain, but which as surely 

 enables the horse to do " great deeds of great renown," 

 and places him far above his kind, as it supplies the hero 

 with the stimulus that renders him immortal. The clear 

 hazel eye, lustrous as a gem, shows his sagacity ; and the 

 long thin ears placed just as I would have them, are per- 

 fection. How daintily the head is set on the neck ; you 

 could span the neck if it were detached from the throttle, 

 which so nearly fills up the space between the jaws. 

 Were it not that the neck is so perfectly formed, it would 

 appear too long, but the crest rises so beautifully that it 

 requires the length to give it such a graceful curve, while 

 Iho depth it displays, where joined to the body, shows a 

 union of strength and lightness, admirable in its just pro- 

 portions. The breast has the rabbit formation, usually 

 Meen in the first-class race-horse. The shoulder blade 

 ises well to the top of the wither, is broad, sloping, and 

 falls back into the sway, just as it ought to, and the point 

 of it is well thrown forward, so that the humerus or upper 

 bone of the leg is oblique. The elbow is properly placed, 

 neither tied in or standing away from the chest ; this is 

 what brings the fore legs so truly under him. As you 

 stand in front of them, they are as true as a line, slightly 

 converging to bring the feet squarely under the body, 

 and the toes straight. The arm is long, the knee broad 

 and strong, with the bony projection behind well devel- 

 oped. The canon is short, the ligaments large, which 

 gives the leg the flatness so much sought after. The fet- 

 lock joint is round, as if turned in a lathe, while the 



