]38 



THE COACH-HORSE. 



CHANGE IN THE FORM AND APPEARANCE OF THE COACH- 

 HORSE DURING THE LAST HALF CENTURY PERFECT 



SYMMETRY NOT ESSENTIAL COLOUR CONSIDERA- 

 TIONS IN PURCHASING A ROAD COACH-HORSE POWERS 



OF DRAUGHT AT VARIOUS RATES OF SPEED ACCI- 

 DENTS AND DISEASES. 



If it cannot be absolutely asserted that the first 

 use of the horse was in harness, it is quite certain 

 that the chariot-horse was held in high estimation 

 in very early times, and is alluded to by poets and 

 historians of all nations and in all languages. Ho- 

 mer says that Diomed, an Asiatic prince, had ten 

 chariots, with a particular sort of horses for each ; 

 and he also makes Nestor, at the funeral games of 

 Patroclus, harness the horses for his son with his 

 own hands ; and, by his skill in directing him in 

 the race, he wins it. But the Grecian bard goes 

 still further into minutiae. He even represents 

 Menelaus, on the same occasion, using OEthe, one 

 of the horses of Agamemnon, with one of his 

 own ; and Priam is found harnessing his favourite 

 steeds to the car, in which he returns, with the 

 dead body of his father, from Achilles's camp, on 



