CHAP. I.] WELL-BRACED LIMBS. 65 



error than existing originally. As if all this were 

 not enough, many breeders nearly starve their 

 young ones until they are brought into use; whereby 

 they become deficient in solidity of bone and quan- 

 tity of muscle, if they do not imbibe some internal 

 or constitutional malady, and the event of their 

 limbs growing mis-shapen is no longer left to 

 chance. 



16. Notwithstanding all that has been said and 

 done, little would avail the finest proportions of 

 the bones towards the formation of fine-shaped 

 limbs, least of all to symmetry of the whole horse, 

 but for the seemingly adventitious circumstance 

 of the covering with which they are immediately 

 invested ; and which, embracing tightly several 

 bones, and connecting them together, constitutes 

 a limb. Some of these coverings are confined to 

 the joints only, holding them in position as near 

 as the Creator designed them, unless accident (of 

 parentage, of birth, or mis-usage), as before de- 

 scribed, should induce them to a perpetual strain, 

 and they enlarge at these joints in spite of the next 

 or universal covering of the bones : this is mem- 

 brane (of which more shortly), the uses whereof on 

 the bone may be illustrated by taking a stocking 

 of good length, and having filled it with pebbles of 

 its own size, and tying the end tightly, a stick or 

 club is produced of some degree of flexibility, re- 

 sembling a limb and its joints. If the tying be not 

 performed well, by bracing the stocking to its ut- 

 most, the flexibility of certain parts (or joints) of the 



