THE HAUNCH AND THIGH. 83 



the horse ; and the bones of the hands andjingers, by union, con- 

 solidation, and great additional length and development, to be made, 

 in four-looted animals, into legs, pasterns, and feet. Man being 

 the peculiar object of the anatomist's study, the prototype of all 

 his other inquiries, the standard to which all his comparisons are 

 referred, we need feel no surprise that the bones of the parts we 

 are engaged in considering should have received names, according 

 to horsemen's views, so inapplicable to them. To prevent any 

 misunderstanding or mistake, however, we must continue these 

 appellations; we must still call that bone which, in the living 

 horse, constitutes part of the haunch, os femoris, and that which 

 really forms the thigh, the tibia. 



The appellations, quarter, buttock, and haunch, appear syno- 

 nymous : at least it is difficult to say what distinctions they admit 

 of, or to define where one ends and the other begins. Haunch or 

 hanch is a French word, used to denote cette partie da corps ou 

 Vimpoita la cuisse : by us it is often used for buttock and thigh 

 combined. Shakspeare, in his Henry the Fourth, has used the 

 word in a sense and with a force of expression peculiar to him- 

 self alone : 



•• Thou art a summer bird. 

 Which ever in the haunch of winter sings 

 The lifting up of day." 



When we say a horse has " fine haunches," we mean to include 

 his thighs and buttocks : the thigh of the horse indicating the part 

 of the limb extending from the stifle to the hock. 



The OS FEMORIS, the lower haunch-bone of the quadruped, is 

 similar in its shape and relations to the same bone in the human 

 frame, but is, in a remarkable degree, a short bone ; whereas in 

 man it is the longest bone in the body, long thighs enabling us to 

 take long steps, affording increased space for muscle, and giving 

 us peculiar advantages on horseback. Long thighs are likewise 

 advantageous for quadrupeds ; but in them, as has been already 

 explained, the os femoris constitutes no part of the thigh. Though 

 articulated by means of a ball-and-socket joint with the pelvis 

 above it, and by a condyloid or hinge-formed joint with the tibia 

 (the true thigh-bone of the horse) below it, the same as in man, 



