ON THE SENSE OF TOUCH IN THE HORSE’S FOOT. 649 
of support in the most favourable manner for deadening the 
shock. 
In fact, it is owing to this plantar sensibility that the animal is 
made conscious of the properties of the ground upon which he 
treads, through which he is enabled to preserve his equilibrium in 
the various paces, let what will be the nature of the surface. Di- 
rected by instinct in the regulation of the attitude which the limb 
should take to sustain the machine through its different movements, 
thanks to the sense of touch in the foot, it becomes forewarned in 
what position it should meet the ground to insure the greatest firm- 
ness of appui. 
Owing to this sensibility of his feet it is, whatever may be the 
pace at which the animal is going, though it be racing even, that 
the horse preserves so steady an equilibrium in his instability. 
Is it likely, for example, that but for this sensitive faculty of his 
hoofed feet, the horse would possess that sure-footedness upon the 
mountain* side and border of the abyss, without the risk of danger 
to himself or to his rider 1 
Does any body suppose that the English hunter engaged in the 
fox-chace could maintain his impetuous course over all sorts of 
obstacles with the same safety as he does were it not for the pro- 
vision at the extremities of his limbs of apparatus for touch which 
made him conscious of the ground he was treading upon and going 
over I 
Does not the blind horse lift up his fore legs high every step he 
takes in order that he may sound the ground upon which he is 
treading, the same as a blind man feels it with his stick ; and does 
not this shew the use of the feeling faculty in the foot 1 
BufFon, in his elegant language, has represented the dog as seeing 
by his nose, to such an extent does the sense of smell serve him in 
following the track of the animal he is pursuing. We might 
borrow the expression of the great naturalist, and say that blind 
horses see by their feet : of so great use is the faculty of taction 
in their feet to them in insuring the safety of their steps. 
And if we required any experimental proof of the necessity 
there was for the horn-covered feet of the horse to be endowed 
with palpable sensibility, we should find it in the consequences of 
neurotomy. 
What happens as the consequence of neurotomy I Why, the 
animal having lost all sensitive power in his feet, is at a loss how 
to graduate the force of the percussion of his steps to the resist- 
ance the ground from its nature offers to them ; on the one hand, 
because he cannot form an exact notion of the distance his foot is 
raised off the ground upon which he is about to replace it; on the 
other, because he is no longer warned by the sensation created by 
