264 THE ARTISTIC ANATOMY OF ANIMALS 



summit of the forelock, the other tangent to the extremity 

 of the anterior lip — a line perpendicular to these two 

 tangents will give you its geometrical length. Divide this 

 length into three portions, and give to these three parts a 

 special name, which may be applied indefinitely to all 

 heads — as, for example, that of prime. Any head whatso- 

 ever will, accordingly, in its geometrical length, always have 

 three primes : but all the parts which you will have to con- 

 sider, whether in their length, in their height, or in their 

 width, cannot constantly have either one prime, or a prime 

 and a half, or three primes ; subdivide, then, each prime 

 into three equal parts, which you wiU name seconds, and as 

 this subdivision will not suffice to give you a just measure of 

 all the parts, subdivide anew each second into twenty-four 

 points, so that a head divided into three primes will have, by 

 the second division, nine seconds, and two hundred and 

 sixteen points by the last.' 



But where this system appears to us to have lost somewhat 

 of its unity is when the author transforms it, in pointing out 

 the following mode of procedure : ' But the head itself may 

 err by default of proportion. This part is not, indeed, con- 

 sidered as either too short or too long, too thin or too thick, 

 but by comparison with the body of the animal. Now, the 

 body, being required to have — whether in length, reckoning 

 from the point of the arm to the prominence of the 

 buttock, or in height, reckoning from the summit of the 

 withers to the ground — two heads and a half ; whenever 

 the head, by its geometrical length, shall give, in length or 

 in height, to the body measured more than two and a half 

 times its own length, it will be too short ; and if it gives 

 less, it will be too long. 



' In the case in which one of these faults exists there would 

 be no further question of establishing by its geometrical 

 length the proportions of the other parts. Give up this 

 common measure, and measure the height or the length of 

 the body ; divide the length or the height into five equal 

 portions ; take, then, two of these divisions, divide them 

 into primes, seconds, and points, corresponding to the divisions 

 and subdivisions which you would have made of the head, 



