50 FORM AND ACTION. 



as I said before, for cart or dray horses, where heavy draught is 

 required, or for animals wanted to carry heavy loads, the short 

 and upright shoulder is to be preferred to the lengthy and oblique 

 structure. 



The connoisseur is quite correct in his observation — " Such a 

 horse cannot ride, short and straight — for the two properties are 

 commonly associated — as his shoulders are :" but let him not on 

 this account reject the animal as useless : it is, as I said before, the 

 sort of shoulder for harness, and for supporting weight, providing 

 it possesses the required muscularity, and providing the horse has 

 action with it : for, be it observed here, though action may be re- 

 garded as the natural product of an oblique shoulder, yet are there 

 many instances where it is found to result from opposite conforma- 

 tions, as well as instances of its absence where one would from ap- 

 pearances prognosticate it to be present. This discrepancy between 

 form and action it is that is so often baffling our judgment and 

 furnishing us with physiological problems which, on too many 

 occasions, we find ourselves unable to solve : nevertheless, the 

 subject, intricate and difficult as it is, shall receive some attention 

 when I come to speak of " action." 



Let the action of the horse be what it may, however, should 

 the shoulders be upright we may be certain of the loss of spring 

 in his movements being such as to make him any thing but easy 

 or accommodating in his paces to his rider : he is complained 

 of as being " a rough trotter" — "a bone-setter;" and the higher 

 his action happens to be, the greater will be the concussion. Mr. 

 Youatt has compared the spring produced by the play of the 

 scapula upon the humerus to the spring of a carriage ; and in its 

 operation it is a happy illustration of this piece of animal me- 

 chanism : the only difference being that in the coach-spring the 

 elasticity resides in the steel of which the spring is manufactured ; 

 whereas the bones derive their spring from the elasticity of the 

 material — ligament — by which they are connected together, and 

 of that — muscle — by which they are united to the body. 



We have been considering the depth of the shoulder and the 

 position of the bones composing it, and in the course of our in- 

 quiries have noticed its substance or muscularity : we will now 

 explain what we mean by 



