6 LECTURES ON' HORSES. 



— vanished. How many hunters are there distressed — shall I say 

 killed 1 — at the beginning of the hunting-season, or before Christ- 

 mas, to what there are afterwards? A "judge," going to view a 

 hunting stud, feels the horses upon the ribs and along their crests, 

 and pronounces, at once, one to remain too " gross" or fat, another 

 to have been over -reduced: his experienced eye and hand telling 

 that in the stable which to another only becomes discoverable on 

 actual trial. 



In young horses, the adeps or fat is mostly deposited upon the 

 external parts, — upon the superficial muscles, — and is, conse- 

 quently, found immediately underneath the skin ; but horses seven 

 or eight years old, and upwards, are very disposed to accumulate 

 fat inwardly — about the kidneys and bowels, and upon the belly, 

 internally. A horse may evince very little fatness outwardly, and 

 yet be loaded with fat " in his inside." Fatty matter deposited 

 among the fleshy parts or muscles of the body, and between their 

 fibres, renders them loose in texture and flabby in feel ; the adeps 

 occupying that space which, in the horse in hard condition, is filled 

 with clean muscular fibre. 



The good great horse is not made up of fatty substance. He has 

 large bones, large joints, and large muscles; and in these, and these 

 alone, consist his superior physical powers. This skeleton is of 

 large dimensions. There is evidence, in the length of the bones 

 and in their bold and prominent projections, of considerable lever- 

 age. The muscles distributed upon it have evidently had every 

 advantage of action, their further power depending entirely upon 

 their own innate bulk and composition. 



The time is now arrived for us to take a view of the fabric and 

 mechanism of 



