CORRESPONDENCE. 243 



ihe 6th November, Mrs. Power 0*Donoghiie 

 recommends that horses' tails should not be 

 docked. Dealers, when offering horses for 

 sale, do not usually volunteer any information 

 as to whether the horses have been docked. 

 I wish, therefore, to inform any intending 

 purchasers who may not know how to ascer- 

 tain whether a horse has been docked, and 

 who may wish to obtain some which have 

 not been disfigured in this manner, that if the 

 dock (that is, the portion of the tail which 

 consists of bones and muscles, &c.) is in its 

 natural state, the hair grows thickly at the 

 end or tip of it, and there is no bare space 

 there ; but if it has been shortened by a 

 portion of it being cut off (or docked), there 

 is at the end or tip of it a circular space of 

 about an inch in diameter, entirely bare of 

 hair. When a horse has been docked, the 

 hair of the tail scarcely grows after it has 

 reached to within six or seven inches above 

 the hocks. The hocks of a large horse are 

 about twenty-five inches above the ground. 

 It is a general custom with London dealers 

 to cut the hair of the tail very short before 



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