STRUCTURES OF THE BODY 



been fed, the better will be the quality of his bone ; for we 

 iind that in dry, hot climates in the East, native ponies, which 

 can have little or no admixture of Arab blood, have legs as 

 clean and hard as any that are to be met with in the Desert. 

 We need not test our theories on this subject by the micro- 

 scope, or by determining the specific gravity of various 

 sections of bone taken from different animals ; for we can 

 obtain a far more reliable and practical proof from the fact 

 that, other things being equal, the more porous are bones, 

 the more liable are they to bony deposits, such as splints, 

 spavins, and ringbones. I here purposely omit to add ^'sore 

 shins ; " for this disease is more or less peculiar to immature 

 thoroughbreds that are put into training at an age much 

 earlier than that at which ordinary horses are broken. The 

 nature of a horse's hoofs, which can always be determined 

 by inspection, or by using the '* drawing knife," will generally 

 afford us a safe guide by which to judge of the quality of his 

 bone. Thus we find that animals which have been reared 

 amid damp surroundings and on succulent food, will, as a rule, 

 be prone to bony enlargements, and will have flat feet of soft 

 horn. We cannot fail to notice this if we compare the horses 

 of the English itn counties with those bred on high, dry land ; 

 or animals raised in the arid plains of the Punjab and 

 Deccan, with those of swampy Lower Bengal. Hence, if, 

 when judging an animal about the history of which we know 

 nothing, and which does not appear to have undergone 

 enough work to test the soundness of his legs, we find that 

 he has weak, flat hoofs, we shall not err, in the large majority 

 of cases, by concluding that his bone is of inferior quality. 

 Although dryness of climate is always a favourable condition 

 for horses ; excessive heat diminishes the size of the bone 

 of the indigenous animals : a circumstance which may, to a 

 great extent, account for the fact that horses bred in tropical 

 climates, however hardy and wiry they may be, are very 

 rarely of a weight-carrying type. 



The popular term ^^bone" refers to the size of the bones 

 below the knees and hocks, as compared to the weight they 



