ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HORSE’S FOOT. 249 
across the quarters than from the toe to the heel. After a few 
months, either because of the stable management, or as a 
result of shoeing, the measurements became equal, or even 
reversed, the hoof measuring less across the quarters than in 
the other direction, to which circumstance was due the oval 
shape it acquired. This observer was able to note identical 
facts as occurring among the horses which came from the 
Tuscan Maremmas for the use of the regiment of Guides of 
the Italian army, to which he was afterwards attached. His 
experience permitted him to state that the foot of a horse in 
domesticity, and shod, can only serve as a type up to a certain 
point, when, in offering natural forms, proportions, and 
directions, it wears the shoe evenly, as the farriers say : that 
is, all the points of the two branches of the shoe shall be 
equally worn, and the normality of the animal’s paces shall 
correspond to the anatomical normality of the foot.* 
The form and dimensions of the typical hoof are admirably 
calculated to aid the horse in developing those locomotive 
qualities for which he is so justly prized. The limbs — so 
many columns of support — have their bases made more secure 
by the wide hoofs which terminate them, and whose largest 
diameter rests upon the ground. This width at the base of 
the limb is proportioned to the nature of the soil and the 
physical features of the country in which the feral horse 
chances to exist, and, as before said, gives rise to different 
models of feet, each of which may nevertheless be perfectly 
healthy and natural. In all, the greater circumference or 
“ spread” of the outer half, when compared with the inner, 
was evidently intended to maintain to the utmost the width 
and stability of the base without incurring the risk of injury 
to the opposite limb ; but the development of width over the 
whole organ, together with flattening of the sole and increase 
in size of the frog met with in some countries, particularly 
northern regions, was given to meet certain requirements. 
The eastern horse, reared in a warm dry climate, accustomed 
to travel over burning sands or rocky mountains, has small 
feet, with the hoofs narrow, hard, and parched, and the sole 
very concave, the wall dense and strong, the frog small and 
indurated, and the heels high. A hoof of this description 
# Even the foot of the ass in a wild state would appear to be very differ- 
ent in external conformation to the small,’ deep, narrow, and almost unsightly 
organ we are accustomed to see in the poor ill-treated domestic drudge. 
Baker, for instance, in speaking of one he shot at the Atbara, and which 
was 13*3 or 14 hands high, says that it had a shoulder far more sloping than 
that of the domestic ass, and that the hoofs were remarkable for their size ; 
they were wide, firm, and as broad as those of a horse of 15 hands. — ‘The 
Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia/ p, 5G, 
