HORSES. 41 



bred horse, but there hiij advantages close. His ancestor was 

 foiined merely for galbping — leaving all nneaner business to (he 

 donkey and the mnle ; which, in his ancestor's clinnate, are noble 

 aniiniils — and from this cause, as well as fronn the peculiar manner 

 in which he has himself been bred an^i treated, he is attended by 

 two great disadvantages. He has. in the (irst place, been bred 

 from a succession of horses selected for their superior galloping 

 from a race of gallopers. 



Excellence in this pace, which is, however, nearly an accurate 

 criterion of wind and mu>cular strength, is generally accompanied 

 by a formation of the animal, inimical to excellence in any other ; 

 and a remarkable disinclination for exerting himself on any other 

 than extraordinary occasions. To assist him in economising his 

 powers, aud to render them entirely subservient to the rapidity of 

 his progression, he is fbrmtnl, fi-equenUy, to move his feet so short 

 a distance above the earth, that, particularly in a slow walk, he is 

 continually liable to have it meet with some obstruction, when it 

 is bent backwards from the fetlock joint, and he is about to throw 

 his weight upon it ; the muscles of the bewded limb not being un- 

 der his command, he must occasionally lose his balance ; and if it 

 is his fore foot, fall forwards ; and, if it is his hind foot, catch back- 

 wards ; and, in conlirmation of the last observation, many superior 

 gallopers appear actually unable to use their muscles properly, 

 when not in a state of violent exertion ; have a slipping, thought- 

 less manner of going at all other times ; and will not brace their 

 muscles. In the second place, he has been in general confined in 

 the stable, and shod previously to his being two years old ; which 

 gives to his hoof a totally ditfer-ent shape, in growing, by prevent- 

 ing its lateral extension ; takes away much of the means of resist- 

 ing concussion which nature intended it to have, by preventing the 

 expansion of the back part of it, when his weight is thrown upon 

 it ; and crowds the circulation of the sensible foot, by preventing 

 the increase of size of the vascular parts after the excessive con- 

 cussion to which the horse is daily subjected from that early age. 

 Being also fed with the largest allowance of corn from before he 

 is weaned, and the hoof deprived, through most of his life, of the 

 dampness of the earth, his foot is exposed to all the evils, increas- 

 ed by happening together, arising from a plethoric habit, from con- 

 traction of the horn, and from mechanical violence ; and, an Ara- 

 bian foot not being originally intended to meet with very severe 

 concussion, a degree of pre-disposition to disease in the foot is pro- 

 pagated to each generation, particularly to caries of the bones ; — 

 which (as the human teeth) are remarkably ready to discover an 

 hereditary mis-organization. The thorough-bred horse has been 

 long naturalized in the States ; forms, at least, half of the Massa- 

 chusetts mongrel, and is found as common, and in as hiyh perfec- 

 tion as in England, in the low country of Virginia. 



But the best horse, of any fixed breed, not thorough-bred, is the 

 English Cleveland Bay ; — of which the horse and mare sent here 

 by Sir Isaac ColHu, were intended as a sample. The true Cleve- 

 6 Vofc. I. 



