182 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
horse, constitutes part of the haunch, os femoris, and that which 
really forms the thigh, the tibia. 
The appellations, quarter, buttock , and haunch, appear syno- 
nymous : at least it is difficult to say what distinctions they admit 
of, or to define where one ends and the other begins. Haunch or 
hanch is a French word, used to denote cette partie du corps ou 
Vimpoita la cuipe : by us it is often used for buttock and thigh 
combined. Shakspeare, in his Henry the Fourth, has used the 
word in a sense and with a force of expression peculiar to him- 
self alone : 
“ Thou art a summer bird, 
Which ever in the haunch of winter sings 
The lifting up of day.” 
When we say a horse has “ fine haunches,” we mean to include 
his thighs and buttocks : the thigh of the horse indicating the part 
of the limb extending from the stifle to the hock. 
The OS FEMORIS, the lower haunch-bone of the quadruped, is 
similar in its shape and relations to the same bone in the human 
frame, but is, in a remarkable degree, a short bone ; whereas, in 
man, it is the longest bone in the body, long thighs enabling us to 
take long steps, affording increased space for muscle, and giving 
us peculiar advantages on horseback. Long thighs are likewise 
advantageous for quadrupeds ; but in them, as has been already 
explained, the os femoris constitutes no part of the thigh. Though 
articulated by means of a ball-and-socket joint with the pelvis 
above it, and by a condyloid or hinge-formed joint with the tibia 
(the true thigh-bone of the horse) below it, the same as in man, 
still it is wonderfully short ; at the same time, it is certainly the 
strongest bone in the body, on account of this shortness being 
combined with extraordinary development of its shaft and ex- 
tremities. Had Sampson armed himself with this haunch-bone 
instead of with the jaw of an ass, he would have found his weapon 
for combatting the Philistines a greatly more efficient one. 
Any disproportionate length of this bone in the horse would have 
thrown the stifle too low down, out of its natural and proper situation, 
which is on a level with the inferior line of the body and with the 
elbow, the joint in the fore extremity to which the stifle corresponds : 
the only augmentation in length the bone admits of being that 
which it derives from straightness in the quarters, or the least 
possible declination in the position of the pelvis. The straight and 
lengthy quarter, therefore, it is which has — providing the depth 
of the carcass be undiminished — the greatest length of round bone ; 
the short and drooping quarter, the least. Here presents itself 
another instance to shew that, when stride or speed is required, 
