CONFORMATION OF HORSES* FEET. 549 
highly important to Veterinarians to have by them various 
sized probangs, and such as are pretty elastic, so as to give 
the necessary curve about the larynx. 
From this rare case we may learn that the symptoms of 
such an injury are not of that violent nature as when there 
is mechanical obstruction. This mare lived ten days without 
swallowing, I should think, more than a quart or two of water 
or gruel; and, I fancy, she gained little nourishment from the 
clysters, as they were frequently ejected soon after given. 
Now what produced the injury? The groom acknowledges 
that he had been giving a ball the day before unknown to his 
master; but he flatly denies having given it upon the end of 
a stick. It is very certain that, if it was not done by such 
means, it was wilfully done by some one. 
ON THE CONFORMATION OF HORSES, WITH REFERENCE 
TO THEIR FEET AND TO SHOEING. 
By J. T. Hodgson, V.S. 
“ Another important branch of study is that of the exact 
sciences. It is thus that we learn to compare and analyse, 
and then to expose the fallacies under which false reasoning 
lurks/’— c The Hunterian Oration,’ by F. C. Skey, Esq., 
F.R.S.; c Veterinarian,’ 3d Series, No. 27, p. 163. 
At birth, the lowest circumference of the foal’s feet are 
alike, i. e. egg-shaped, or the geometrician’s oval, the toe being 
the smallest end. In a few days the form begins to change, 
and in a few months the horn that formed the hoof at the 
coronet at birth is pushed forward, and has gradually grown 
down ; the form is still further changed by the hoof diverging 
from the centre on one or both sides of the toe. The lowest 
circumference of the sensible feet have also undergone the 
same changes. The coffin bone of the fore part has gra¬ 
dually grown different in shape, it has also diverged from 
the centre on one or both sides of the toe. 
Now, we cannot have this extension by growth without 
motion, and we have facts to prove that it is concentric , and 
not eccentric, for this divergence by growth continues till, 
in the adult, the shape becomes the segments of a circle . 
The lowest circumference of the sensible foot and hoof 
are not in the same plane, or they would form concentric 
circles; besides, the periphery of the hoof is ever changing 
