THE TROT. 
105 
trot of all animals ; it is demonstrated by the ox, wapiti, eland, 
fallow-deer, dog, and the cat, in their respective seriates. 
On p. 119 are four phases selected from the stride of 
a high-stepping trotter, which demonstrates in a decidedly 
pronounced manner the usual sequence of foot-fallings; 
the high action, however, is not conducive to speed, as 
much time and labour is wasted in unnecessary exertion. 
About a century ago Garrard, an artist of note, painted 
a picture of the Duke of Hamilton riding a horse, trotting, 
entirely clear of the ground. The phase seems to have 
been an innovation that was not acceptable either to other 
artists or to the public. 
We have seen, in the Preface, that so recently as 
twenty-five years ago, it was the common opinion of those 
who were supposed to have studied the motion of a horse, 
that while trotting he always had at least one foot in 
contact with the Qround. 
The Romans were familiar with this pace ; but as they 
were accustomed to the amble, they did not appreciate it. 
They called a trotting horse a “ succussator,” or shaker; a 
negative evidence that a racking horse was unknown to them. 
References to the trot are frequent in English poetry. 
Chaucer alludes to it in “The Merchant’s Tale;” and 
Spenser, in “ Faerie Oueene,” iv. 8, says— 
“ Whose steadie hand was faine his steede to guyde, 
And all the way from trotting hard to spare : 
So was his toyle the more, the more that was his care.” 
Sir Philip Sidney, “ Arcadia,” ii. : “ I flatly ran away 
from him toward my horse, who trotting after the com¬ 
pany . . .” 
The gait was evidently not a favourite one of Shake¬ 
speare’s ; in a metaphor, “As You Like It,” iii. 2, Rosalind 
says, “ Time . . . trots hard.” 
Swift, on the contrary, causes Gulliver, in “ A 
Voyage to the Houyhnhnms,” x., to look upon their “gait 
and gesture . . . with delight,” and took it “ as a great 
compliment ” when his friends, on his return, told him 
that he “trotted like a horse.” 
Scott, in nearly all his romances, speaks of the motion, 
with high, round, full, hard, reasonable, rapid, stumbling, 
or other prefix. 
SOME PHASES IN THE FAST TROT OF A HORSE. 
P 
