178 BITS AND BITTING. 



sensitiveness of the bars. The soft, fleshy tongue is, of 

 course, much less sensitive to pressure than the bony 

 bars, covered only with a very thin membrane; and 

 consequently, if we used a perfectly straight unjointed 

 mouth-piece of a moderate thickness, this resting wholly 

 on the animal's tongue would, notwithstanding a certain 

 amount of lever-action, be the very lightest form of 

 bit that could be well devised ; in fact, a good snaffle 

 would, on account of the joint, be more powerful. On 

 the other hand, if by means of what is called a " port " 

 we remove all pressure from the tongue and transfer it 

 to the peculiarly sensitive bars, we obtain, with pre- 

 cisely the same amount of lever-action as before, a 

 much greater amount of power in fact, the sharpest 

 form of bit that it is generally advisable to use. Now 

 between these two extremes there is a wide range, and 

 the whole art of bitting consists, so far as the mouth- 

 piece goes, in determining how much of the pressure 

 shall fall on the tongue and how much on the bars, and 

 we are thus enabled, by means of an almost infinite 

 system of gradations, to obtain exactly the degree of 

 action required in each particular instance by the nature 

 of the service we demand, whatever the relative thick- 

 ness of the tongue and sensitiveness of the bars may 

 chance to be. 



But there is one essential to be attended to namely, 

 that the portion of the mouth-piece destined to rest on 

 the tongue and the bars respectively should keep their 

 proper places, and this can be secured only by making 

 -the mouth-piece of precisely the same width as the horse's 

 mouth. For it is very evident that if a mouth-piece 

 furnished with a port be too icide, a very slight pull on 

 one rein will suffice to displace it, so that the bar at that 



