An Essay on Fat and Muscle. 
259 
horses on the turf are not capable of runnintj such long distances 
and carrying such heavy weights as the olden racers were — since 
the system adopted in rearing, training and racing, has been very 
considerably altered within the last half century. Our blood 
stock were formerly shorter in the leg, and more compact and 
muscular animals, seldom running until four years old, and fre- 
quently not Jive years. But now they run at two years old, 
carrying light weights, and running short distances, where bottom 
and stoutness are not so necessary ; and it is this difference in the 
style of racing which has altered their former character. 
19. There are certain external signs or tokens which are used as 
indications of early maturity, and of the determination of the 
animal frame to produce fat or muscle in an eminent degree. We 
will proceed to consider some of them. The first token which a 
grazier will make use of, for the purpose of ascertaining the feed- 
ing properties of an ox, is technically called the touch — a criterion 
second to none, inasmuch as a thick, hard, unyielding hide indi- 
cates a bad feeder, and an unprofitable animal. A thin papery- 
feeling hide, covered with thin hair, indicates the very reverse of 
the former, as such an animal will speedily fatten, but will not 
carry much muscle ; at the same time it indicates a delicate con- 
stitution. This quality is produced in animals by great refine- 
ment in breeding, and especially by breeding from animals near 
of blood : in doing so, we should remember that we are de- 
viating from the natural chai'acters, in a point connected with 
hardiness of constitution. The perfect touch in a feeding animal 
will be found with a thick loose skin, floating as it were on a 
layer of soft fat, yielding to the least pressure, and springing back 
to the touch of the finger, like a piece of thick chamois-leather. 
This token indicates hardiness of constitution and capability of 
carrying plenty of muscle, as well as a sufficiency of fat. The 
physiological history of these tokens is as follows : — The cutis, or 
true skin, is that portion of the external integuments from which 
leather is manufactured ; and is much more dense and elastic in 
some breeds than in others. Its external surface lies in contact 
with a layer of cellular tissue which intervenes between it and the 
muscle. This cellular tissue contains a larger or smaller amount 
of fat cells; and the mellow feel which is found in some animals 
arises from the resiliency or springing back of the cellular tissue 
in which the fat is deposited on being touched. Where there is 
much "mellowness" in a lean animal, it arises from the free 
circulation of the blood-vessels through the meshwork ; and 
where there is a hard feel, it arises from the cellular membrane 
participating in the hardness of the hide, and therefore being 
less capable of dilation by the interstitial deposit. 
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