CHAPTERS ON EVOLUTION. 



represented at m*, Fig. 32), which veterinary surgeons familiarly 

 term " splint-bones." (See also Fig. 34, A, </, d.) But these " splints " 

 bear no finger-bones, and the condition of the horse's " hand," or 

 fore-foot, is therefore seen to be of most noteworthy and curious 

 conformation. It may, indeed, sometimes happen that two small 

 pieces of gristle or cartilage may be found at the base of the 

 splint-bones, and comparative anatomists incline to regard these 

 gristly pieces as the representatives of the 

 first and fifth fingers. The ordinary condi- 

 tion of the horse's hand may be summed 

 up by saying that the animal walks on one 

 well-developed finger the third and pos- 

 sesses the rudiments, in the form of the 

 " splint-bones," of other two fingers, the 

 second and fourth. These latter, it need 

 hardly be added, are completely concealed 

 beneath the skin and other tissues of the 

 limb. In the hind limb of the horse (Fig. 33) 

 a similar modification is observed. The 

 thigh-bone (fe) and knee-cap (/) are readily 

 observed. There is but one toe the third 

 (*> 2 > 3 ) supported by a single cannon 

 bone (0*/ 1 ); and there are likewise two splint- 

 bones (one depicted at mi* ), representing the 

 rudiments of the second and fourth toes. The 

 horse's heel (A), like his wrist, appears out of 

 place, and is popularly named his "hock." 

 The shin-bone (/) is the chief bone of 

 the leg, and has united to it the other 

 bone (_/), succeeding the thigh, named the 

 fibula, and which is seen in man's leg, and in 

 that of quadrupeds at large. 



To the eyes even of an unscientific observer, 

 who sees the skeleton of a horse placed in a 

 OF HORSB. museum, in contrast with the bony frames of 



other and nearly related animals, the equine 



type is admittedly a very peculiar and much modified one. In- 

 place of five toes we find but one ; and in the matter of its teeth, as 

 well as in other features of its frame, the horse may be said to 

 present us with an animal form which appears as a literal example of 

 Salanio's remark, that 



Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time. 



A person of a thoroughly sceptical turn of mind might possibly 

 demand to know the exact reasons for the assumption that the splint- 



\rntt 



FIG. 33. 

 SKELETON OF HIND LIMB 



