A 



HISTORY OF ANIMALS. 



BOOK I. 



ANIMALS OF THE HORSE KIND. 



CHAP. I. 



OF THE HORSE.'* 



Animals of the horse kind deserve a place next to man, in a 

 history of nature. Their activity, their sti'ength, their useful- 

 ness, and their beauty, ali contribute to render them the princi- 



1 As it may happen, that in a description where it is the aim rather to in- 

 sert w lint is not usually known, than all tliat is known, some of the more 

 obvious particulars may be omitted ; I will take leave to subjoin in the notes 

 tlie eliaraiteristic marks of each animal, as given us by Linnaeus. "The 

 horse, with six cutting' teetli before, and single-lioofed ; a native of Europe 

 and tlie East (but I believe rather of Africa) ; a generous, proud, and strong 

 animal ; fit either for the.draught, the course, or the road ; he is deliglited 

 with woods; he takes care of his hinder parts ; defends himself from the 

 flies with his tail ; scratches liis fellow ; defends his young ; calls by neigh, 

 ing; sleeps after night-fall; tights by kicking, and by biting also ; rolls on 

 the ground when he sweats ; eats the ^rass closer than the ox ; distributes 

 the seed by dunging; wants a gall bladder; never vomits; the foal is pro- 

 duced with the feet stretched out ; he is injured by being struck on the ear; 

 upon the stiffle ; by being caught by the nose in barnacles; by having his 

 teeth rubbed with tallow; by the herb padtis ; by the herb phalandria; by 

 the cruculin ; by the conops. His diseases are ditterent in different countries. 

 A consumption of the ethmoid bones of the nose, called the glanders, is with 

 us the most infectious and fatal. He eats hemlock without injury. The 

 piare goes with foal 290 days. The placenta is not fixed. He acquires not 

 the canine teeth till the age of five years." 



* The horse genus, according to the Cuvierian arrangement, is placed in the 

 Class Mammalia, which contains tho.se animals that suckle their young, and 

 forms the ninth genus of his sixth order, called Pavhydermata. The loUow 



