90 
ANIMALS IN MOTION. 
This motion is perhaps better scientifically demonstrated 
in series 26, which represents a complete stride by a 
first-class ambling horse, photographed at Palo Alto 
during the summer of 1879. The horse not having been 
of a suitable colour for the background, the outlines 
were carefully filled in to give the figure more distinct¬ 
ness, and a dot added to distinguish the right feet from 
the left. The stride is somewhat more than completed 
in phase 11. No record of the speed was taken, but 
it probably was about seven miles an hour. 
Series 27 illustrates twenty-four phases of one nearly 
completed stride of an elephant while progressing at as 
fast a speed as vigorous persuasion could induce—equi¬ 
valent to a mile in somewnat less than seven minutes. 
The gait resorted to was the amble. In phase 10 
the weight of the body devolves on ▲ ; 12 demonstrates 
the assistance rendered by O ; the bend of the knee in 
14, which is more pronounced in 15, determines O to 
be practically furnishing exclusive support for a brief 
period, which function is shared by A during several 
following phases. In 21 A assumes the entire respon¬ 
sibility until 23, when the animal is again fairly on the 
diagonals. 
The diagram of the stride of a horse is equally applic¬ 
able to one by the elephant. 
The walk and the amble are probably the only two 
gaits used by the elephant in his natural state. Oriental 
paintings and carvings may not be very trustworthy 
sources of information, but so far as they have been 
examined by the author, they corroborate this supposition. 
It is very remarkable that, although the amble is the 
most comfortable to the rider, of all the gaits which are 
natural to the horse, or to which he has been trained, it 
is now, in Great Britain, either entirely unknown, or has 
lapsed into disfavour. It is perhaps more remarkable that 
many writers on the horse and horsemanship should have 
confused this delightful, easy motion, with that disagree¬ 
able jolting gait, appropriately termed the rack, or, as 
it is ambiguously called by some horsemen, “ the pace.” 
It would seem plausible that the very earliest riders 
of the horse would very soon discover the steady and 
comparatively rapid motion of the amble, just as the 
North American Indians have, whose acquaintance with 
the animal does not date back much more than two 
centuries. 
The gait was evidently well known to the ancients. 
On the walls of Ivarnak, the great Rameses is represented 
on his return from the wars with prisoners ; he is standing 
in a chariot drawn by two ambling horses. The phase 
corresponds with one occurring between 4 and 5, series 23. 
Horace, in his “ Epistles,” as translated by Francis, 
alluding to a retired citizen who enjoyed comfort, says— 
“ On horse-back now he ambles at his ease.” 
Vegetius, in the fourth century, writes of the “ arnbu- 
latura ” being the favourite gait of the wealthy and 
indolent Romans, and of the care they bestowed on their 
horses to make them perfect in it. 
Illuminated manuscripts of the tenth and later centuries 
—if they may be considered as reliable evidences—prove 
