6 
LECTURES ON HORSES 
THE SKELETON OF THE HORSE. 
The bones of which the body is composed, divested of their flesh 
or muscle and other soft parts, and connected together in their na- 
tural order, constitute the skeleton or osseous fabric of an animal : 
to this the fleshy parts are attached, by it the bowels are supported 
and protected, and from different parts of it project levers, by whose 
means, through the agency of the muscles or moving powers, loco- 
motion is performed. 
The contemplation of the skeleton of the horse — or, indeed, other 
quadruped — presents to the mind a figure too irregular to admit of 
any comparison save to the animal of which it once formed the 
framework. It is constituted of a part we call the body , but which 
is strangely deficient about the loins ; supported by four columns 
or legs, and has attached to it, in front, the neck and head ; behind, 
the tail. This is the view the superficial observer might take of 
the skeleton ; but it is not the view which will answer the ends 
of science, or convey to our mind those notions of its fabric upon 
which must be founded our philosophy of its uses and operations. 
Let us commence at the occiput or hind-head, and we shall find a 
continued chain of bones, termed vertebra, extending from it, form- 
ing the bone-work of the neck, and back, and loins, and tail : alto- 
