FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CON FORMA TION. 



(ill the absence of any particular defect) to the fact of the 

 conformation of the animal not being suitable to the kind of 

 work to which he was put. In our study of the " make and 

 shape " of horses, we may profitably begin by taking a 

 comparative view of animals of great speed and those of 

 immense strength, so as to arrive at a knowledge of the 

 principles by which their special characteristics are developed 

 to a high degree of excellence. As the conformation best 

 adapted for the one is different from that for the other, we 

 cannot find both united in the same animal. I need hardly 

 say that the manner in which the proportions of speed and 

 strength are varied in each particular horse, is the measure 

 of the suitability of the animal to the kind of work it is called 

 upon to perform. Thus, a dray-horse which can trot a mile 

 in eight minutes with 3,000 lbs. behind it, may be quite as 

 useful, in its own way, as a match-trotter which, with a sulky 

 and driver weighing together 200 lbs., can do a mile in two 

 minutes twenty seconds. 



Comparative Conformation. — In this proposed re- 

 search, we shall find that the two classes (those of speed 

 and those of strength) to which I have just alluded, differ 

 essentially in shape from each other, and that individuals of 

 each respective class have a similar kind of conformation. 

 As an example of the gallopers, let us take the Indian black 

 buck [see PI. i), which, for half a mile, could give five 

 hands and a beating to the fastest horse that ever looked 

 through a bridle. Then there is the cheetah {see PI. 2), 

 which can give the antelope 100 yards start and catch him in 

 a furlong. It is true that the spotted cat effects his purpose 

 a good deal by surprise • but it is equally certain that for a 



