10 SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 
tion and experimentation to enter that of pure specula¬ 
tion.” 
We seldom find that such irregularities result in lame¬ 
ness ; but at the meeting of the Veterinary Society of Namur 
of 28th July M. Migeotte, president, exhibited a monstrous 
produce of a horny nature, which had appeared on the level 
of the button-shaped inferior extremity of a rudimentary 
metacarpal of a foal. Its structure resembled that of the 
hoof in every respect, and its figure resembled a slightly- 
curved goat’s horn. The foal was lame, and M. Migeotte 
attributed the lameness to pain on the level of the rudi¬ 
mentary metacarpal, since the imperfect hoof touched the 
ground when the animal walked.” 
We observe in the Annales of December, 1878, some 
“Notes on the Irregularities of the Spinal Column of 
Equidee , by Andre Sanson, Professor of Zootechny; from 
the Journal de V Anatomie etde Physiologie. —Anatomists have 
hitherto included under the term 4 anomalies ’ irregularities 
either in the number or in the form of the vertebrse which 
constitute the spinal column. M. Sanson, in this paper, 
opposes the use of such an unscientific term, which, with M. 
Chevreul he considers equivalent to ‘ ignorance He is of 
opinion that these irregularities depend upon hereditary ten¬ 
dency being disturbed, or from the conflict resulting from 
the union of two types. To understand this we must recall 
to mind that the author considers that there are in the 
natural group of Caballine Equidce two distinct rachidian 
types, with the formulae:—1st. 7 + 18 + 6 + 5 = 86 vertebrae; 
2nd. 7 + 18 + 5 + 5 = 35 vertebrae. To the first type belong 
seven varieties of natural horses. The second type includes 
only the Equus Caballus Africanus, whose natural geogra¬ 
phical range borders on that of E. C. Asiaticus. These two 
species are Oriental, and generally known under the common 
term 4 Arab horse.’ It is rare to meet with subjects of these 
two species entirely pure in the countries which they inhabit 
together. e These two types are Brachycephalic, but their 
facial forms are markedly different. Thus, the forehead in 
the Asiatic is flat, with the orbital arch prominent and the 
lachrymal depressed. In the African the forehead is arched, 
the orbital arch obscured, and the lachrymal curved. In 
the English race horse, produced by the introduction into 
England of the Oriental stallion, the mixture of these facial 
forms shows itself frequently as the result of plasticity 
( atavisme ), since the subject inherits one or many of the 
bones of the face from one of the ancestral types, and the 
rest from the other. But in the parts of the skeleton where 
