4<28 THE HORSE. 



down, and so on successively ; and in cantering both pairs of 

 legs are often raised from the ground at each strike the animal 

 gives to the surface.* 



It may here be mentioned that iron horse -shoes were not 

 invented till the year 481, nor introduced into general use till 

 the ninth century. In the figures of the horses discovered on 

 the ruins of Persepolis, there is not the slightest trace of any 

 covering for the hoofs ; and we read of Alexander's cavalry 

 becoming unserviceable owing to the hoofs wearing away. 



The horse's movements are not confined to the earth. He 

 takes the water naturally, and can swim far, and in good style, 

 even in the sea. 



" And eke the courser, whereupon he rad, 



Could swim like to a fish whiles he his back bestrad." 



(Faery Queene, Book V. canto ii. stanza xiii.) 



Mr. Jesse relates an anecdote of a mare having swum from 

 the Hampshire coast to the Isle of Wight, five miles distant at 

 the nearest point 5 and cites another instance in which a horse, 

 much exhausted from swimming, landed on the Glamorganshire 

 coast, having embarked perhaps from the opposite coast, which 

 is ten or twelve miles off. In the latter instance the horse's 

 motive was not apparent, as nothing further concerning him 

 could be ascertained j but in the former the horse was impelled 

 by a desire to return to the master from whom he had been 

 purchased the day before. Ariosto notices the memory of the 

 horse in a passage full of truth and nature (Orlando Furioso, i. 

 175) ; and the same subject forms the ground work of a pleasing 

 little romance, entitled ' Lai du Palefroi vair/ in Les Fabliaux du 

 XII. Siecle. Rogers, in his poem on Memory, has not forgotten 

 to notice this faculty in the horse : 



" When o'er the blasted heath the day declined, 

 And on the scathed oak warred the winter-wind ; 



* Sculptors, artists, and others to whom a correct knowledge of the 

 attitudes of animals is important, should consult the illustrated work, entitled 

 De Motu Animalium, by J. A. Borelli, Prof, of Mathematics at Naples, or, 

 what is perhaps more accessible, the Field Naturalist's Magazine (1833), 

 vol. i. p. 14. 



