176 GENERAL TREATMENT OF HORSES. 



Lastly, upon the subject of rest, and the means 

 of procuring the advantages of it to the hunter by 

 a summer's run in the fields, we cannot do better 

 than quote from the same author : — " When dis- 

 cussing the subject of summering hunters with a 

 friend, who is an advocate for the grazing system, 

 he made use of the following expression : ' I dare 

 say it may be all very well to keep them in the 

 house in the summer, but then they have not the 

 benefit of the rest which they get when at grass.' 

 I could not help smiling at this strange perversion 

 of facts ; and ventured to ask him, Whether, if he 

 were examined in natural philosophy, and asked, 

 what is rest^ he would answer, motion f and, if he 

 did, that answer would not be a whit less absurd 

 than his other. If rest be desirable, as we know 

 it is, for a hunter's legs, after the labours of a win- 

 ter, surely he must obtain it more effectually in a 

 small confined place, than when suffered to run 

 over a large tract of land, and to stamp the ground 

 with his feet for so many hours each day." Nei- 

 ther does the labour to the legs end here. All 

 persons who have ridden horses, whose groAvth has 

 been forced in their bodies, as that of most hunters 

 has been, must have perceived that, when letting 

 them drink in shallow water, their fore-legs totter 

 under them, in the attempt to reach the water with 

 their mouth. Such is the case with the hunter, at 

 least with the properly formed one, when in the 

 act of grazing (for the horse prefere a short bite) ; 

 and the tremor in his legs shows the stress that is 

 laid upon them, to enable him to reach his food. 



