2oo THROUGH STABLE AND SADDLE-ROOM. 



that their food and work are proportionate. A 

 horse doing a great deal of hard work requires a 

 proper proportion of hard food. Some horses, 

 hunters especially, are very frequently so nervously 

 constituted that they will not feed well, and the 

 worst of it is that it is at the very times when 

 they should get the food inside them, they refuse to 

 eat. Such horses will often refuse their corn after 

 the excitement of a day's hunting, and, what is 

 almost as bad, will not feed before starting. They 

 seem to know by instinct that they are going 

 out. It is well-nigh impossible to cheat them. 

 Animals are endowed with an instinct which is 

 beyond our reasoning powers. Cavalry horses 

 know the time better than the barrack clock, 

 thousfh I am free to admit that it is small blame to 

 them if they do, since a barrack clock is generally 

 about as bad a timekeeper as can be found. But 

 even if the clock be wrong, they are not. When 

 their feeding-time approaches, although there may 

 have been no indication of it given, there is such a 

 neighing, and screaming, and kicking, as if they 

 were all mad. I could, of course, quote ever so 

 many instances in proof of the sagacity of horses, 

 but I will refrain from doing so, and return to what 

 I was saying. It is, as I observed, very often a 

 difficult matter to o-et an excitable horse to feed. 



