156 



ANIMAL MECHANISM. 



lore-limbs are much more considerable than those of the 

 hinder ones. This fact appears to us to be constant ; and the 

 inequality of the re -actions is still more marked in the walk- 

 ing pace, because the apparatus placed on the withers almost 

 always gives appreciable re- actions, while that on the croup 

 gives scarcely any. 



Of the irregular trot {trot decousu). — We call that a free 

 trot which gives two distinct sounds to the ear for each pace, 

 and we name that irregular, each sound of which is in a cer- 

 tain degree divided by the want of synchronism in the strokes 

 of each diagonal biped. The irregular trot has been met 

 with in many of our experiments. Occasionally this pace was 

 continued, and then the want of synchronism existed some- 

 times in the impacts of the two diagonal bipeds, and some- 

 times in • one pair only ; at other times, on the contrary, the 

 trot was irregular only for an instant, at the moment of the 

 passage from one kind of pace to another. In all the experi- 

 ments which we have hitherto made, the want of synchronism 

 depended on the hinder limb being behind the anterior limb 

 which corresponded diagonally with it. 



Fig. 46 represents the notation of an irregular trot, in 

 which the diagonal impacts leave between them an appre- 

 ciable interval of time. We can recognise this by the 

 obliquity of the dotted line which unites with each other the 

 impacts of the two diagonal bipeds. 



Fig. 46.— Notation of the irregular trot. 



The piste of the trot is represented in fig. 47, according to 

 Vincent and Goiffon. All the prints are double, for the 

 hinder-foot always comes up to take the place of the fore-foot 

 on the same fiide. 



In fig. 47 we have rendered this superposition imperfect 



