470 
REVIEW. 
degeneracy of late years in the breed of our horses, and an 
inquiry into the method to be adopted to remedy this, which 
he fears may some day be found to be ce a festering rotten¬ 
ness in the core of the country.” He says, 
“ My object is to lay before all who prize the horse from a love of 
the animal, or from sordid or prudential motives, my views as to the 
great danger in which we stand of losing him altogether, as a sound 
and useful animal, because of the yearly increasing deterioration which 
is visible to the accurate observer; and also, what I feel firmly convinced 
is the most effective mode of generally diffusing that soundness, and 
the varied desirable, qualities which render the horse valuable for ge¬ 
neral purposes, and which, I hope, I have clearly shown can be much 
preserved and accelerated by judicious attention; and how great an im¬ 
provement can be made, and what an amount of health, comfort, and 
longevity, can be added to our most faithful, docile, and affectionate 
servant, the cheerful companion and willing slave of our pleasures, and 
the staunch ally ‘ 'midst death and wounds, and war’s alarms’—render¬ 
ing him more generally sound and efficient, and enhancing his value by 
improving his constitution, form, and action.” (p. 4.) 
For “ breaking” the horse Mr. Hunt does not appear to 
be an advocate of the “ Rarey system,” especially when applied 
to young horses generally, but rather to that recommended 
by Mr. Clarendon, the fundamental principle of which is, 
“ that the propelling power of the horse resides in his hind 
quarters, and there chiefly in his haunches.” 
“ All progressive motion in organised beings is produced by alternate 
contraction and extension of their propelling members, whether the 
instrument of motion be the wing of the bird, the tail or fin of the fish, 
the annular process of the reptile, or the leg of the biped or quad¬ 
ruped; its efficiency equally depends upon its being brought into con¬ 
tact with the resisting medium when in a state of contraction, so that 
the corresponding extension, when it takes place, necessarily forces the 
body forward in the direction of the least resistance. Thus the bird 
and the fish cleave a passage through their media of air and water re¬ 
spectively, and thus all creatures which move on the surface of the 
earth bring their propellers to the point of resistance in a contracted 
state, moving their weight forward with a velocity proportioned to the 
power exerted in the subsequent extension of the contracted members. 
In case of the healthy horse, the fore leg comes to the ground in an 
extended state, all its bones, with the exception of those at the pastern 
joint, abutting on one another in very nearly a straight line, from the 
point of the shoulder to the extremity of the leg, so that being mani¬ 
festly incapable of further extension, it must be concluded, on the 
principles just laid down, that it is incapable of exerting any propelling 
energy, and consequently the only purpose it can serve is that of 
sustaining the weight of the incumbent fore quarter during the succes¬ 
sive advances of the hind legs. Add to this important consideration, 
