516 COMPARATIVE DISEASES AND LAMENESSES 
the coffin and pastern bones against injury. The bearing of the 
French shoe also, as well as the comparatively cool state of the 
system, may contribute to this blessing — not forgetting the compa- 
ratively slow rate of travelling, with that of our country. 
String-halt is very rare indeed in France. If it be brought 
about, as it is said to be, by over-action of the hinder leg, we might 
expect it here, in horses which are taught to run, or “ amble,” as 
the exertion in that pace is chiefly from behind. I have seen no 
case of string-halt in France ; very few spavins, and very much 
fewer windgalls than are seen in our country. 
What may be called epidemics and strangles prevail, I believe, 
everywhere ; and the former, I have reason to believe, more fatally 
on the Continent than in England. With colts which are exposed, 
as they are in most countries, but less in England than in any other, 
to the unhealthy influence of certain seasons, we cannot be sur- 
prised at their being liable to the natural consequences ; but with 
those not exposed to atmospheric vicissitudes, we can only attribute 
certain diseases to some unknown atmospheric agency, and which 
agency will ever remain unknown. For example : Two years after 
I purchased the Arabian stallion Buckfoot, of Mr. Thornhill, of 
Oxfordshire, for the King of Prussia’s stud, at the price of £500, 
I wrote to the Master of the Horse to ask how he was going on ] 
He replied, that, together with eleven other stallions, he had fallen 
a victim to an epizootic that had raged in the stud ! It is somewhat 
singular, however, that the produce from Buckfoot amounted to 
seventy-three colts and fillies, all of which were grey, his own colour 
being milk-white on a black skin. 
Cases of inflamed lungs are much more rare in France than with 
us, which may be owing to the generally large French stables, which 
admit plenty of air, but not, as I have before said, by a thorough 
draught. This remark leads me to the recollection of a drawing and 
description of a self-adjusting ventilator for the use of stables, 
which was sent to me by Mr. Newland, V. S., of Stratford-on-Avon, 
and which appeared admirably suited to the purpose of purifying 
the air, and thus getting rid of the most prolific cause of this dan- 
gerous disease — namely, foul air. The chief merit of this instru- 
ment consists in its working being regulated by the change of tem- 
perature, with the same regularity as the thermometer ; and it was 
my intention, had I been permitted to have done so, to have noticed 
it in the pages of the New Sporting Magazine, as a sort of safety- 
valve in stables containing large studs. 
There is one property in French horses which I very much ad- 
mire, and that is, their docility. Since I have been in France, 
with the exception of young racing stock, I have not seen a colt in 
what is called “ breaking tackle.” This, in some measure, arises 
