HI8 PROPERTIES. 53 



the former is interrupted, in the latter continuous. This ex- 

 plains why the horse has no gall bladder, as it requires no 

 reservoir for that necessary fluid; for, as fast as the bile is 

 secreted by the liver, it is carried to the intestines to perform 

 its important action on the chymous mass. The stomach of the 

 horse is also remarkably small and simple, differing widely 

 from the capacious and complicated structure of the rumi- 

 nantia ; but tlie intestines are long and the coecum capable of 

 containing a large quantity of fluid, of which it is considered 

 the receptacle. The mamma of the mare is by no means so 

 pendulous and bulky as that of the cow. The horse's feet, from 

 their compact, undivided nature, are much less liable to injury 

 during fleet exertion than those of the ox. All these circum- 

 stances tend to establish the individuality of the horse, and are 

 so many proofs of admirable design for the purposes to which 

 man has applied him ; for without these peculiarities he would 

 not be so valuable and superior, as a beast of continued and 

 rapid motion, and would consequently occupy a very inferior 

 station. 



" Linnaeus asserted that the male horse was without the 

 rudimentary mamma invariably found in the males of other 

 animals ; but this naturalist was mistaken, for they may be 

 seen on each side of the sheath, and, although of no possible 

 use, still their existence preserves the uniformity of nature's 

 operations. 



" The horse and zebra possess horny callosities on the inside 

 of the fore-legs, above the knees, and on the hocks of the hind 

 legs ; the ass and the quagga have them only on the fore ex- 

 tremities. 



" In a state of nature, the horse is purely an herbivorous 

 animal, but under the restraint wliich domestication imposes, 

 his habits become changed, and grain and dry grasses form the 

 principal articles of his diet. Domestication is known to origi- 

 nate many diseases totally unknown in a natural state, but it 

 appears to have the effect of augmenting the muscular power 

 of the animal far beyond its uncultivated extent." 



From this brief and clever synopsis of the principal peculi- 

 arities natural and physical of the horse, regarded merely in his 

 generic form as an original quadruped, without considering his 



