PANICS AMONG HORSES. 
781 
marked and pleasing trait in the character of the Russians, 
which nearly every traveller in Russia has commented upon. 
For instance, Erman (‘ Travels in Siberia,’ vol. i, p. 314), 
speaking of the carriage drivers or “ yamshchiks ” in that 
country, remarks : 
“ Travelling on the road seems to them rather pleasure than 
business, and partly with ever-varying apposite addresses to 
the horses separately, always in rhyme, partly with songs of 
considerable length, they accompanied the alternate bounding 
of the rattling carriage. Words serve the Russian yam- 
shchik instead of the whip, which in travelling is never used. 
A mare he calls “ good woman ( sudaruma ) /” a tired horse 
he addresses as starik, or “ old fellow;” collectively they are 
called “little doves ( golubki ),” and then, one after another, 
they are separately accosted with every endearing epithet. 
They are exhorted to be “ wide awake,” not to flag on the 
road, which constantly grows shorter, but to bound without 
delay from hill to hill.” 
And again, when on the way to Beresov, the same dis- 
tinguished traveller writes : 
“ It is remarkable that in a country where the love of 
horses is so predominant, the use of the cracking whip of 
Western Europe is quite unknown. I never remember to 
have seen it, or to have heard it named, in Russia.” 
I have merely referred to the Russian love for horses, and 
their kind and sensible treatment of them, as an incidental 
circumstance in the matter of animal panics ; but the subject 
is nevertheless one of importance to the army veterinary 
surgeon, who has a direct interest in the promotion of 
humane and kindly management of the horses of his 
regiment ; it is also one in which the country should feel 
interested, if on the score of economy alone. 
In our last month’s paper we alluded only to panics among 
horses, but it must not be inferred from this that they are 
not observed in other animals. The bovine species is no 
less liable to this peculiar psychological phenomenon, and 
M. Decroix, at a meeting of the Societe Centrale de Medecine 
Veterinaire , held on the 25th August, 1870, refers to the 
following instances, though he states that in France there 
are panics nearly every year among the cattle collected at the 
fairs. 
The Moniteur Universal , for the 22nd March, 1868, 
says : 
“ The cattle assembled at fairs are sometimes seized with 
inexplicable panics which cause them to fly in every direction, 
and give rise to formidable accidents. Two events of this 
xli v. 54 
