VARIOUS ARTICLES IN “ THE VETERINARIAN.” 345 
Pricking up my ears at “ Castrel” — one of the very best stallions 
of his day, and whose only failing was one which it might have 
been well for me, could it have been laid to my own charge, 
namely, being a very uncertain foal-getter, — I had her brought 
out for my inspection, when I found her limp with the near 
hinder leg. “ She is lame,” said I. “ She certainly is,” replied 
Mr. Mayer; “ but what can it be? I rode her to Lord Comber- 
mere’s yesterday- — in all, more than forty miles, — and she came 
home quite sound. Let her walk along the yard,” said he to 
his man, “ with her head quite at liberty.” Then here comes 
the pith of my story. Taking a pencil from his pocket, he 
chalked out the muscle which passes down the thigh and over 
the hock, assuring me that there was the cause of the limp ; 
“ but,” added Mr. Mayer, “ you may rest assured that it is a 
mere temporary injury, and that in two or three days she will 
be quite sound again.”— “ Very well,” I replied ; “ allow me to 
ride her over a fence or two, and if I like her in that respect, 
she is mine ;” so, mounting John on the drag, on our way home- 
ward, I rode her over the country, parallel with the road, for 
nearly two miles ; found she could “ do the trick ;” and sent 
Mr. Mayer his money the next day, which was either sixty or 
seventy pounds. Now, had one of the old school of veterinarii 
been in Mr. Mayer’s situation at this moment, the odds would 
have been great-that he knew not the existence of this muscje 
in the first place, and, in the next, I should not have believed 
him if he had described it as the seat of the injury. 
But the sequel. Why, about the third day, the soreness of 
this muscle, for such no doubt it was, abated ; I sent the mare 
into Warwickshire; and, before Christmas-day, in consequence 
of her having been one of a few out of a large number that 
cleared the brook under Witchford Wood, at the end of a very 
smart burst, without a fall — the said brook being brim full, with 
rotten banks, — she was purchased of me by Mr. Smythe Owen, 
the present master of the South Shropshire foxhounds, for a 
hundred and fifty guineas. 
Now, I have always dreaded lameness in a hinder leg from no 
visible cause ; and had this mare been in my stable, I should 
have been quite at a loss for the seat of the evil, and the guess 
would have been either stifle or round-bone. But how is it that 
hunters are so rarely injured in either of those parts, whereas 
hounds are so liable to be 6( stifled,” as the term is, the cause 
being attributed to the act of leaping, and especially in countries 
where the fences are placed upon banks, and the hedges splashed 
or bound? I never had a hunter injured in the stifle, although 
1 must some scores of times have had their hinder legs entangled 
