THE HORSE. 139 



moderate daily exercise and purging, if necessary. 

 On the topic of shying, it should be known and 

 remembered, that it is often the unavoidable conse- 

 quence of decaying and vacillating sight in aged, 

 and particularly worked horses, representing to them 

 objects at uncertain distances and in strange shapes. 

 Instead of rigour and correction, this defect, in the 

 poor, aged, and guiltless animal, should be met with 

 kind consideration and gentle government of the 

 hand ; the passion, whipping, spurring, and checking, 

 which I have so often seen used on these occasions, 

 by incurable thick skulled human, not humane, idiots, 

 only serve to produce additional fright and despera- 

 tion in the horse, and danger to the rider : another 

 instance, not of honourable mention, is the common 

 practice of these worthies to use all the above seve- 

 rities upon a horse which, shod with smooth iron, 

 unavoidably makes a false step on a pavement slip- 

 pery as glass ! The faltering also, and joint dropping 

 of crippled horses, should be treated with care and 

 compassion. 



With respect to the signs of soundness in a horse's 

 wind, the best testimonies are a loud, bold, sonorous 

 cough, and the absence of short, quick, irregular 

 heavings of the flanks. I perfectly agree with an 

 old French writer, that we may judge correctly of 

 the state of a horse's wind by the motion of his 

 flanks, without hearing him cough ; but I cannot 

 join in his assertion that there are confirmed asth- 

 matic horses that do not cough, since I am not aware 

 that I ever knew one in such state which did not 

 frequently send forth a short husky cough in con- 



