LEGS HARMONISE WITH THE REST OF STRUCTURE. Ol 



continuing the present citation, as in what follows 

 therein he differs diametrically from Mayhew, and 

 he declines to follow servilely in the path even of 

 those he most respects ; but Mayhew himself could 

 hardly object to his action in this respect when 

 he says : ' Veterinary surgeons display ignorance in 

 nothing more than in being servile copyists.' Not 

 that the writer pretends to be a veterinary sur- 

 geon. He is only a practical man who has had 

 a very wide and long experience amongst horses 

 in many countries, and has been a very close observer 

 of everything touching their feet and legs especially, 

 and is now only offering the result of his so-gained 

 experience for what it may be worth. Almost from 

 the beginning of his connection with horses, he 

 declined to consider the legs as a separate part from 

 the body of the horse, and refused to believe that 

 four sets of them were necessary to wear out one 

 body, as, if such were the case, the horse would be 

 an incomplete and niggardly gift made by Nature to 

 man; and from the outset of his religious educa- 

 tion, received at his mother's knee, he has always 

 been taught, and in his various wanderings he has 

 never had reason to doubt, that Nature made every- 

 thing complete, and nothing in vain. Hence he in- 

 ferred that the horse's body was never made stronger 

 than his legs and feet, and that these, when under- 

 stood, will be found to be * fearfully and wonderfully 

 made,* and in every respect harmonising with the 

 rest of his structure, and equal to their task. 



* Impecuniosus ' says truly : ' The prevalent idea 



e2 



