70 FORM AND ACTION. 



this account 1 Is there any person can say, after he has mounted 

 and ridden a horse, whether that horse have ossified splint bones 

 or elastic ones 1 I have ridden numbers of horses in my time ; 

 and, as a general rule, certainly find that young horses possess 

 more elasticity in their movements than old horses ; and this is 

 readily enough accounted for when we come to consider the number 

 of animal springs there are in the body, all or most of which 

 become impaired, and some altogether lost, in the course of age 

 and work : among them, however, I should say those of the splint 

 bones were probably the smallest in importance, and therefore 

 would be the least of all missed. 



In every horse that has splints this conversion of elastic into 

 osseous union has necessarily taken place ; and, as I said before, 

 this is also found to be the case in every horse of a certain age, 

 whether he shew splints or not : for the appearance of the splints 

 is simply owing to increased or supplementary deposit of osseous 

 matter, and is not the effect of mere ossification of the elastic 

 substance. And this shews, when lameness arises from splint — 

 which it occasionally, by no means always, does — that it is not at- 

 tributable to the mere circumstance of the conversion of the uniting 

 substance of the metacarpal bones from elastic into osseous matter, 

 but is ascribable to the tumour, and we believe is caused by the 

 straining or overstretching of the periosteum, the membrane which 

 covers the bone. Were horses who had lost these springs to go 

 lame, or even perceptibly roughly or jarringly, the preservation of 

 them, and the ascertainment whether horses really possessed them 

 or not, would become considerations of importance to us: since, 

 however, we are, in truth, unable to say, from a horse's action, 

 either on or off his back, whether these springs be in existence 

 or not, we give ourselves, in practice, no concern whatever about 

 them. 



Short straight cannons are most desirable : as I have said in 

 another place, length of arm and shortness of leg are good points — 

 are signs of strength and action and endurance. While the dis- 

 tance from the elbow to the knee can hardly be too lengthy, that 

 from the knee to the fetlock can hardly be too short : and the 

 cannon bone should be straight in its position ; neither inclining 

 forwards, as in the calf-leg ; nor directed backwards, as when the 



