A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



able to consider the extremely valuable facts supplied by the life-history of a breed 

 in which more accurate details about pedigree and performance have been preserved, 

 over a longer period of time, than is the case with any other animal known to man. 

 These details, however, are lamentably inadequate from the anatomical point of 

 view. Even concerning Eclipse, the most valuable individual animal who ever 

 lived, considerable doubt exists as to various essential details. Very few skeletons 

 of famous horses have been so carefully preserved as to provide adequate proofs 

 of their authenticity or accurate measurements of their framework. It may be 

 hoped that the growing interest taken by owners and breeders in the biological 

 side of their intensely fascinating pursuit will now lead, not only to the preservation 



of the skeletons of such typical animals 

 as Ormonde, St. Simon, Flying Fox, and 

 others, but also to the accurate repro- 

 duction of their living framework by the 

 means of plaster casts. The Hungarian 

 Government has already proved the 

 possibility and the value of such a 

 process in various breeds of live stock. 

 The Director of the British Museum 

 of Natural History is perfectly willing 

 to give every facility to owners and 

 breeders in taking a course which will 

 be as useful to them as it will be valu- 



A Roman racehorse. 



Much enlarged from an Augustan cat ved sardonyx in the 

 possession of J. P. Hcseltine, Esq. By permission of 

 the Autotype Co. 



able to the wider interests of scientific 



research. That Museum should contain reduced models to scale of all our typical 

 thoroughbreds now living, and skeletons of the best of them. It only remains for 

 owners like the Dukes of Westminster, Devonshire, or Portland to give a lead in 

 doing a public service which will be of inestimable benefit to ourselves and to 

 posterity. The work done by the modern photographer is, of course, highly valuable 

 in this connection. When it is employed, and collected, in such a book as that 

 of Major-General Sir John Hills, it provides exactly the data on which scientific 

 inquiry can proceed until better facts are forthcoming. His measurements of the 

 humerus in proportion to the scapula, and his notes on the formation of the legs 

 and the position of the stifle, are just the right kind of anatomical details which are 

 required. Mr. Muybridge's system of instantaneous photography, and Professor 



