63 GRINDING. NARROW CHEST. [BOOK I. 



the heels, thus : a star, one white foot ; a blaze, 

 two white feet; white face, four white legs, &c. 

 Horses with large jaws are given to keep open their 

 mouths while at work ; and, when aged, grind their 

 teeth more than is necessary in feeding. The man- 

 ner of breaking his food being, with the horse, 

 different from that of other animals, viz. by rubbing 

 his under teeth from right to left against the upper 

 ones, — a motion to which the term " grinding his 

 corn" has been applied ; — an old horse will some- 

 times contine it when he has nothing to eat, thereby 

 wearing away his teeth ; a circumstance that oc- 

 casions imperfect mastication, and its consequences, 

 besides subsequently leading us into error in ex- 

 amining this test of his age. Hard-mouthed horses, 

 and those which champ the bit much, fall into this 

 idle habit. 



Flat, or narrow-chested horses are subject to 

 those attacks which lead to consumption (see sect. 

 36), and, consequently, are liable to show bad con- 

 dition; or, it may be, that disorders of the chest 

 do contract its capacity : as horses that die after 

 long-suffering in the lungs, and parts adjacent, as 

 I mean to show in a subsequent page of this volume, 

 have the internal part of the breast-bone much af- 

 fected, as if the moisture thereof were dried up by 

 the heat of the contiguous disorder. In some 

 horses, on the contrary, the cavity of the chest 

 seems too great for its contents ; they are " broken 

 winded" horses of one description, (there being 

 several) that are afflicted with these kinds of mal- 



