HORSE BREEDING IN FRANCE. 
399 
opinion in favour of the admixture of Arab blood very rational. 
The report, which has been adopted by the Academy, concludes 
by recommending that the thanks of that body should be given to 
M. Richard for his communication.”— Weekly Dispatch, 2Qth April, 
1829. 
In becoming the voluntary advocate in defence of a noble ani¬ 
mal our professional avocations so often bring us in contact with, 
1 have no object but the denial of this aspersion; and I shall be 
happy to see the subject in abler hands in that periodical more im¬ 
mediately concerned in these matters. I claim the indulgence of 
your readers, who, I am sure, are better able than the Academy of 
Sciences to decide on the merits of the English thorough-bred 
horse. 
“ The impracticability of reducing this science to any definite 
rule or law has placed it among that species of knowledge which a 
man gains by dint of observation alone; hence it is that the best 
practical judges of shape and make are to be sought after rather 
among horse dealers and persons connected with the turf than 
among those who pretend to make a science of it; for the one will 
at a single glance point out a well-shaped horse, while the inexpe¬ 
rienced other will not, with all his proportions at his fingers’ ends, 
be able to judge half so correctly or half so specAly.” 
Now, the savants of the Academy of Sciences are not of the 
above description of persons, and are a fortiori incompetent judges; 
yet they do not scruple to adopt a report founded only on the opi¬ 
nion of M. Richard. 
“ Proportion and position are, however, far from being the only 
considerations with one who is about to estimate the capabilities of 
an animal body; we must look to material or texture, to organiza¬ 
tion and to nervous influence; which relations seem compre¬ 
hended, in the vulgar sense, under the head of bfeed or race. 
For instance, when we say that horses require to be well bred 
in order to combine speed and bottom with strength, we mean that 
the texture of their bodies should be of a finer and superior de¬ 
scription to that of others; that their organization should be cor¬ 
respondency better wrought; and that their nervous or vital in¬ 
fluence should be of a higher caste. These constitute the corporeal 
differences between the race-horse and the cart-horse, between an 
animal of breeding and no breeding. It is a curious but well- 
ascertained fact, that portions taken from any correspondent bones 
in the bodies of these respective animals are, with all their differ¬ 
ence in magnitude, of nearly equivalent weights, proving that one 
contains as much material as the other; the difference being, that 
in the one it is more closety and better wrought together, conse¬ 
quently better adapted to quick motion, while it still possesses un- 
