THE BELLY. 35 



lar in their search after stock " with good," i. e. full and ample, 

 breasts; they well know the value of such a point, and the 

 dependence to be placed upon it in indicating a good or bad 

 worker. With nags and others we are not in the habit, I should 

 say, of paying sufficient attention to it. Although we may not re- 

 quire — had rather not have — a broad chest, yet cannot the breast 

 be too fleshy or prominent. A lean-breasted horse cannot fail 

 of being weak in his fore limbs, if he be not in his hind too. 

 When I speak of a prominent breast, however, I do not mean one 

 that projects so much forward that the fore legs appear to recede 

 from it underneath the body, making the animal what is called 

 " stand over;" for this shews faulty position of the fore limbs, and 

 a sort of unnatural lengthiness about the fore parts of the breast, 

 which cannot but prove disadvantageous in progression. I shall 

 revert to this point when I come to speak of the position of the 

 ^fore limbs. 



THE BELLY. 



This being a part which has no existence in the skeleton, would 

 hardly, with propriety, be considered by us in this place, were it 

 not intimately associated in its formation with the chest, and so 

 dependent upon it for its form and size, that we seem called upon 

 to transgress the rule of procedure we had set ourselves at the 

 beginning. 



The chest and belly, in inseparable union, constitute the body. 

 Exteriorly, we can with difficulty determine where one begins 

 and the other ends ; but when we come to dissect the body, we 

 find that, interiorly, their cavities are altogether separate, being 

 divided by a broad and complete partition of fleshy substance. 

 The size or bulk of the belly, for the most part, is regulated by 

 the dimensions and form of the chest ; though, in many instances, 

 one is large, while the other is comparatively small. In a horse 

 that is " ribbed up," or " ribbed home," the belly receives so much 

 more support from the posterior ribs than when the interval be- 

 tween the last rib and hip-bone is long, that, with the chest, it 

 appears, under all circumstances, to preserve a sort of indivisible 

 union and never-varying proportion. But such horses as are short- 



