OF THE GALLOP. 



171 



register going, and allows the tracing to be taken at a suitable 

 time. 



Through the kindness of Mens. H. Delamarre, who placed 

 at our disposal his stables at Chantilly, we have been able to 

 procure tracings of the full gallop, of which the following is 

 the notation ; — 



Fig. 63.— Notation of full gallop ; re-actions of this pace. 



It is seen that this pace is, in reality, a gallop in four-time. 

 The impacts of the hinder limbs, however, follow each other 

 at such short intervals, that the ear can only distinguish one 

 of them ; but those of the fore-legs are noticeably more dis- 

 sociated, and can be heard separately. Another character of 

 the full gallop is, that the longest period of silence takes 

 place during the pressure of the hinder limbs. The time of 

 suspension appears to be extremely short. 



To get the best possible results from these experiments, it 

 would be necessary to repeat them on a great number of 

 horses, and to ascertain whether there may not be some rela- 

 tion between the rhythm of the impacts and the other 

 characters of the pace. We must leave this task to those 

 who especially addict themselves to the study of the horse. 



Lastly, let us add, that the re- actions, in full gallop, repro- 

 duce with great exactness the rhythm of the impacts. Thus, 

 it is observed, that at the moment of the almost synchronous 

 impacts of the two hinder limbs, there is a sharp and pro- 

 longed re-action, after which two less sudden re-actions take 

 place, each of which corresponds with the impact of one of 

 the fore-legs. 



The line placed above fig. 63 is the tracing of the re-actions 



