LEAPING. 103 



very quick in the use of them. Wall jumpers come 

 within the same class with timber jumpers as to 

 make and shape. 



There is one faculty in which the horse is want- 

 ing, that would, if he possessed it, give him a great 

 advantage in leaping. In the human species, the 

 power and influence of feeling are inherent, in a great 

 degree, to the very tips of the fingers ; but the horse 

 has no proper organ of feeling or touch. When a man 

 takes his spring for a leap, or leaps on the top of 

 any substance, he has a distinct and certain sense 

 or knowledge of the nature of the ground from 

 which he has sprung, and of the substance on which 

 he has alighted ; but, from the insensible nature of 

 the horse's hoof, such feeling is, in a great measure, 

 denied to him, and indispensably so too. Still, 

 however, there are a few instances upon record of 

 horses going very well over a country even after 

 having undergone the operation of neurotomy, by 

 which all sensibility, from the fetlock downwards, 

 has been destroyed. 



Looking at the pace of hounds, and the manner 

 of riding after them, which have so materially 

 changed within the last half century, it is insisted 

 upon by some that the hunter of the present day 

 ought to be of full blood. Eeasoning from analogy, 

 indeed, between the powers and capabilities of one 

 and another, we are decidedly in favour of that 

 breed which has the greatest share of strength 

 within the smallest compass ; and such is decidedly 

 the character of the thorough-bred horse. Inde- 

 pendently of this, the thorough-bred horse, when 



