Humanity and mercy are esteemed the choicest characteristics of man; and there is hardly a greater instance of ill-nature, or a more certain token of a cruel disposition, than the abuse of dumb animals, especially of those who contribute to our convenience and pleasure. Judge Hale beautifully expresses himself on this subject in his Contemplations. "There is a degree of justice," says he, "due from man to the creatures, as from man to man; and an excessive use of the creatures' labour is an injustice for which he must account. I have therefore always esteemed it a part of my duty to be merciful to my beasts." We know of no remedy for this; but it is pleasing to reflect that in all classes of society so noble, generous, and useful an animal as the horse, is now freed from many evils to which he was formerly subjected. In fact, if the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Animals hear of a case, they will send their agent any distance to prosecute it. The short-docking of the cart-horse, the effect of prejudice and ignorance, it being supposed to add strength to his back, is very generally discontinued, and he is allowed the use of a full tail, the only natural defence against the torment of flies in the summer. Those barbarous operations, micking the tail, and cropping the ears of pleasure horses, are very seldom had recourse to; neither is firing the limbs nearly so frequent a remedy as it was, veterinary science having substituted other equally efficacious, but less painful means. And, though last, not least, the improved condition, and the effect of better stable management, on all horses employed in fast work, has very considerably lessened their sufferings. On this subject we offer the following remarks:

Condition, or Stable Management of the Horse.

The improvement in training the race-horse has been the result of two distinct causes, each equally likely to produce the desired effect. First, practical experience, an excellent schoolmaster in such matters; and, secondly, both breeders and trainers of this animal now look into books, not only reading them, but reflecting upon what they read. As we have already observed, trainers dislike green meat, and a racing-colt may now be said to be in training, if not from the day on which he is foaled, from that on which he is weaned; for his condition, at least the foundation of it, is from that period in progress. Again, the early period of his going into work, compared with what it formerly was, but now become so general, has not been without its effect. It has called forth additional exercise of the trainer's professional skill; for it may easily be imagined that bringing very young horses to the post, in the perfect state of condition and full development of muscular power in which we now-a-days see them at every race-meeting in our island, is a very difficult task; and that it is a still more difficult one to preserve them in that state, even for a few days. On the whole, the training system of the present day is not nearly so severe as it was; and railways have done much towards keeping horses in condition, by allowing them to stay at their own stables and training-ground till within a few hours of the race, instead of losing condition by a long walk on the road, and even to say nothing of a fresh stable and fresh water every night. Many of the great favourites have now their own food and water brought to a race-meeting with them for fear of risks, as change of water especially is most detrimental to a horse in form. Both constitution and temper being to be consulted, the very refinement of the art is called for; in fact, the trainer must act upon principle, and very cautiously too, in his efforts to forestall nature. Inasmuch, however, as muscular action produces muscular strength, the racer of the present day, reared as he is reared, and consequently in a more condensed form, does not, with few exceptions, require the very severe work which it was formerly necessary to give him to increase his natural powers, as well as to rid him of the bulk of flesh and humours he acquired in his colthood under the old system of rearing him. A sight of our two-year-olds at the starting-post is the best demonstration of what is here stated. They exhibit a development of muscle in their forced and early maturity almost equal to that of the adult horse, and carry 8 st. 7 lb. and even upwards, at a racing pace; a weight Treatment unheard of upon so young an animal in former times. How far, however, this forced maturity and its consequences—namely, severe work, and the excitement of high keep, at so tender an age—are favourable to him or to his produce in after life is another question; but the use of a system should never be estimated by the abuse of it. If our race-horses are not, and we believe they are not, so stout in their running as formerly—that is to say, twenty years back—the cause may fairly be traced to the great value of produce stakes and others, which bring them to the post at so early an age; so much so, that, in the language of the turf, a four-year-old colt of the present day is called "the old horse."

But a still more material alteration for the better has taken place during the last thirty years in the stable management and condition of the British hunter, arising principally from a different treatment of him in the non-hunting months. It had, from time immemorial, been the usual remark of the sportsman, on his hunters being turned out of their stable in the spring, for the supposed necessary advantage of the "summer's run at grass," that it was to be lamented that the hunting season was concluded, as the condition of his stud was so perfect. The fact was that until then, or nearly till then, they had not been in condition at all; and, how strange soever it may appear to any one reflecting upon this subject, by the act of turning them to grass for this "summer's run," he was about to undo all that his groom and himself had been doing during the nine preceding months—namely, to destroy the perfect state of condition which he was at that time lamenting over. Still more strange, however, is the fact, that although the evils of this out-of-door system for three months in the year to an animal who lived the other nine in warm stables and well clothed, were hinted at by Mr Beckford in his celebrated Letters upon Hunting, and abandoned by a few of our first-rate sportsmen of, and subsequent to, his day, and particularly about the commencement of the present century, by the example of the Earl of Sefton, when he was owner of the Querndon bounds in Leicestershire, still the ruinous system of the three, and generally four months' run at grass (viz., from 1st of May to the 12th or 20th of August) continued to be practised until these evils were exposed in all their appalling deformity, and the advantages of an opposite system made manifest in a series of letters in the Old Sporting Magazine, under the signature of "Nimrod," which have since been published in a separate form, and very widely circulated. We may also add that the effect of this exposure has been nearly a general abandonment of the grazing system in the studs of all men who mean to ride near bounds.

Previously to our enumerating the real advantages of the modern system of "summering the hunter," we will state the imaginary ones of the old one, and which, as may be supposed, are still held to be such by those who reluctantly acquiesce in any kind of reform. First, the purging by spring grass is insisted upon. Secondly, a relaxation of the muscles, and what is called a letting down of the whole system to its natural state. Thirdly, the benefit the feet receive from the dews of the evening, and coming in contact with the cool earth. Fourthly, the saving of expenses. Fifthly, a kind feeling towards the animal, who, they say, is entitled to his liberty for a certain period of the year, also to the free enjoyment of his natural state. And, lastly, the absolute necessity of rest to the limbs, after the labours of the preceding season. We will now make our own comment on each of these presumed facts.

And, first, we admit there is a laxative, and therefore a cooling, property in early spring grass, but as a purgative it is insufficient, which is admitted by the fact of its having been generally considered necessary to give two doses of physic to hunters previously to their being turned abroad for the summer (thus administering the antidote, as it were, before the poison), and to physic them immediately when taken up. Here, then, is at once an answer to the first objection to the improved system of in-door treatment in the summer; even supposing that spring grass could not be given to a horse in a loose box, whereas it is evident that it can.

Secondly, the entire letting down of the system, by a sudden change of food from that which is highly invigorating to that which is only succulent and relaxing, is neither called for, nor can it be wholesome. It is never had recourse to with the race-horse during his period of inactivity, and why should it be with the hunter? We would ask the owner of a horse so treated, how he thinks it would agree with his own constitution and his digestion, to be suddenly taken from beef and port-wine to a purely vegetable diet; and the analogy holds good.

Thirdly, a great mistake has prevailed on this point, the preservation of the feet. A certain degree of moisture is beneficial to the foot of the horse, a continued exposure to wet most injurious to it, as the certain cause of thrushes, and in time total destruction of the frogs. Thus, history informs us that the horses in Hannibal's army were rendered unserviceable by travelling many days in succession in very wet ground. But we have better authority here than that of Livy, because it applies to horses which wore shoes, whereas Hannibal's wore none. Mr Goodwin senior, late veterinary surgeon to his Majesty George IV., in his work on the Diseases of the Feet (p. 209, 1st edit.), has the following passage, in allusion to the evils of having the feet of horses saturated, as they must be during a summer, with wet at one time, and then suddenly exposed to a hot sun and a drying wind at another. "I have invariably observed," says Mr Goodwin, "where horses are turned out to grass during the dry and hot summer months, that on bringing them up to be put into stable condition, their feet are in a much worse state than they were when they went out, dried up, and so hard and brittle, that, on the application of a tool to bring them into a form to receive a shoe, the horn breaks like a piece of glass, and all the naturally tough and elastic property is lost, so that it requires some months to remove the bad effects. If it is necessary that a horse should be put out of work during the hot and dry weather, I prefer a large box or shed, and soiling with green food; by which means two objects are gained, viz., all the injurious effects of a drying wind or a meridian sun on the hoof are avoided, which create such an excessive evaporation of the natural moisture absorbed into the horn from within, that it not only becomes dry, hard, and brittle, but the whole horny box tightens on the sensible parts, and frequently produces great mischief. But in a loose place, moisture may be applied in any desirable way." In addition to the above, Mr Goodwin says, "Horses at grass are much inclined to thrushes;" which renders it unnecessary for us to say more on this subject at present, although we shall by-and-bye offer the result of our own experience in the treatment of horses' feet in the summer.

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1 In No. 59, vol. v., p. 645, of the Veterinarian, we find the Editor coinciding with Nimrod on this point, in his second review of his Letters on Condition. "These pithy and valuable extracts," says he, "at the same time that they serve to expose our author's views in regard to summering the hunter, demonstrate a sagacity and experience on the subject, no less worthy of the admiration of the professional man, than of the sportsman himself. The leading consideration in summering the hunter is to maintain his condition, or rather, we should say, to guard against his losing that which we know, both by education as medical men, and experience as sportsmen, once lost, will require much time and pains to be re-acquired. Change of food is necessarily productive, in the animal constitution, of alteration of structure; though parts cannot be said to change their nature under their influence, yet they do become greatly altered both in texture and in tone." Fourthly, a saving in expense. This is an objection too trifling to be admitted in opposition to any real advantages.

It was calculated by Nimrod (allowing only 4s. per week to have been the charge for each horse, supposing him to have been summered at grass), that the extra expense of his six hunters summered after his system, which we shall further explain, amounted to only L13, 18s. The mere chance in favour of exemption from accidents to which horses abroad are liable, is worth more than this inconsiderable sum to the man who keeps six hunters in his stable; but twice its amount would be realized in the sale of any of the six, if offered at the hammer in November, beyond the sum he would have produced had he been summered solely in the fields.

Fifthly, we would go any length in advocating the extreme of kind treatment to so noble an animal as the horse; but experience has taught us, that neither the open field, nor the shade, is a bed of roses, in the summer months, to the well-bred, and naturally thin-skinned hunter; for the osmum, or blood-sucker, pursues him in each; and the desperate attempts he often makes to avoid them, shows the horror he has of their attacks. But, unluckily for the advocates of this system, one of the greatest evils of the out-of-door system here stares us in the face. If the horse cannot get away from this host of tormentors, his only remedy against them is, galloping from one end of his pasture to the other, or else stamping with his feet against the hard ground, and often against the roots of trees, to scare them from one part of his body, only to settle upon another. The injury to both feet and legs from a daily succession of these operations, may be left to the imagination of the reader; but against the charge of cruelty, we quote the following remark from Nimrod's Letters (p. 268, first edition): "In the very hot weather" (he is speaking of the summer of 1825, which was remarkable for the intensity of its heat), "I made a few observations, which are not irrelevant to my present purpose, particularly as to the charge of cruelty in keeping hunters in the house in the summer. On the 29th of July, one of the hottest days, the thermometer was one degree higher, at 2 o'clock at noon, in my two four-stall stables, in each of which three horses had stood for sixteen days and nights, than it was in the entrance-hall of my house, which is 23 feet high, and contains three large windows and six doors, and the aspect due east. Now, will any one tell me, that the most tender animal could be injured by breathing such an atmosphere as this? But all is not yet told. I removed the thermometer on the same day, and at the same hour, into the shade, and there it was four degrees higher than in my two four-stall stables. Here, then, the objection to horses standing 'sweating in the stables in the summer time,' returns to its real insignificance."

Lastly, upon the subject of rest, and the means of procuring the advantages of it to the hunter by a summer's run in the fields, we cannot do better than quote from the same author. "When discussing the subject," says he (p. 262), "of summering hunters, with a friend who is an advocate for the grazing system, he made use of the following expression: 'I dare say it may be all very well to keep them in the house in the summer, but then they have not the benefit of the rest which they get when at grass.' I could not help smiling at this strange perversion of facts; and ventured to ask him, Whether, if he were examined in natural philosophy, and asked, what is rest, he would answer, motion? Treatment and that would not be a whit less absurd. If rest be desirable, as we know it is, for a hunter's legs, after the labours of a winter, surely he must obtain it more effectually in a small confined place, than when suffered to run over a large tract of land, and to stamp the ground with his feet for so many hours each day." Neither does the labour to the legs end here. All persons who have ridden horses whose growth has been forced in their bodies, as that of most hunters has been, must have perceived that, when letting them drink in shallow water, their fore legs totter under them, in the attempt to reach the water with their mouth. Such is the case with the hunter, at least with the properly formed one, when in the act of grazing (for the horse prefers a short bite); and the tremour in his legs shows the stress that is laid upon them, to enable him to reach his food. In fact, many horses (and we could name some well-known hunters) cannot reach the ground at all with their mouths, unless it be by the painful position of placing one fore foot close to their mouth, and the other even with the hinder legs; and consequently their owners have not been able to turn them out, had they been inclined to do so.

It is now our turn to be heard on this important subject to all owners of hunters; and we proceed to state, that the principal objection to summering a horse abroad, consists in the danger we expose him to by the violent change from a stable at the temperature of 63° (the common one of hunting stables), and the addition of warm clothing, to a bed upon the cold ground on a wet night; or, which often happens in the month of May, to the influence of sharp frost; all this, also, when the animal has scarcely any coat on his back to provide against the effects of bad weather; and with a skin highly porous, from long continued friction in the stable. As well might we expect to find animals and plants that can sustain the heat of the torrid, and the cold of the frigid zone, as horses to bear those extremes with impunity! On the contrary, it is the confirmed opinion of most veterinary surgeons, that more hunters have been ruined by becoming roarers, broken-winded, or blind, from this cause, than from any other to which they are subjected; and they are backed in their opinion by reason. For it is not necessary that the newly-turned-out hunter should be exposed to either a wet or a frosty night, to produce disordered functions; the common exhalations from the ground in the evening, are sufficient to produce them, by a sudden constriction of the pores, opened as they have been by the effect of a hot sun during the day. "Heat and cold, moisture and dryness," says Mr Percival, veterinary surgeon to the First Life Guards, and author of the Anatomy of the Horse, in his last work on the Horse (p. 64), when treating on the theory of inflammation, "all in their turn become excitants of inflammation; their mischievous agency residing more in the vicissitudes from one state to its opposite, than in any obnoxiousness in our climate, from their excess or continuance. They may operate either directly as excitants, or indirectly, simply as predisposing causes." Few veterinarians, indeed, as Mr Percival expresses himself, now-a-days feel inclined to deny the uncongeniality of cold and wet to the constitutions of horses, or to maintain that they do not very often, in such situations, contract the foundations for disease, which at some future time is apt to break out and prove fatal to them.

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1 Two tons five hundred-weights of hay, at L4 per ton. L9 0 0 Seventy-one bushels of oats, at 4s. 6d. per bushel. 14 4 0 Beans. 1 10 0 L.24 14 0 Six horses at grass nine weeks, at 4s. per week. 10 16 0 L.13 18 0 Nor are the remarks of this scientific practitioner and most perspicuous writer, less to our purpose, when speaking of the horse that is turned out of his stable in the winter. "Take a horse," says he, in his chapter on 'Hide-bound' (p. 296), "fat and sleek in condition, out of a warm stable, where he has been well clothed and fed, turn him, during the cold and wet of winter into a straw-yard, and go and look at him three months afterwards, and you will hardly recognise your own horse. You will find him with a long, shaggy, staring coat; a belly double the size it was when in condition; and a skin sticking close and fast to his ribs, which may now be readily counted with the hand, if not with the eye." But here the analogy between the horse turned out to grass in the summer, and the horse sent to a straw-yard in the winter ceases. The latter loses flesh, and becomes hide-bound, both of which will find a remedy in a return to more generous food in the stable, with the assistance of alternative medicine; and he will speedily resume his condition. But it will not be so with the grass-fed hunter. He has accumulated a load of soft, unhealthy flesh, which must be got rid of at the expense of his legs and feet; or, in the language of grooms, "it must be exchanged for better flesh, the produce of hay and corn." By feeding ad libitum, however, he has so plinthorized his system, and trespassed upon his digestive organs, that this is become not merely a work of labour and time, but one of no small risk to the general soundness of his constitution. Nor is even this the extent of the mischief. Under the most favourable circumstances, it is not in the power of a groom, how good soever he may be, to bring the grass-fed hunter into the field, fit to be ridden, with hounds, until the hunting season is half expired. For proof of this assertion, we need only go to the race-horse, which cannot be made fit to run under at least four months' preparation, although he has not been at grass since he was six months old. Nature will not be put out of her course by violence; and horses can only be got into good condition by degrees, by long-continued slow work at first, increasing in pace as their condition increases; and it has been the attempt to get the grass-fed hunter into something approaching to condition, by hurrying him in his work, under a load of flesh, and with his muscles in a relaxed state, that has ruined thousands of good horses, by the injury done to their legs especially; and will ruin thousands more, if persevered in. The change of food, again, has been the cause of more broken-winded horses than anything else that can be named. "It must dispose," says Mr Percival, "from its being the chief cause of plethora, to general diathesis of the system; and so far it contributes to the production of pneumonia, or any other inflammatory affection." To this we may add blindness, the natural consequence of the dependent posture of the head when feeding, in an animal in the plethoric state that a previously highly-fed hunter must fall into, after being some weeks at grass; and likewise of constant irritation from flies and sun. Neither should the following remark of Mr Percival's be forgotten by gentlemen who turn out their hunters during a wet summer. "Cold," says he, "abstractedly from wet, even although it be alternated with heat, is not found to be near so prejudicial as when moisture is present too; hence we are in the habit of viewing frosty weather as a season of health among horses; and hence it is that the spring and autumnal months are the most unhealthy, the weather being then moist and variable, and the wind generally in a cold quarter." Again, "Two undomesticated horses," says he, "out of three, under five years old, that are taken from cold situations, and kept in warm stables, will receive catarrh. But even domesticated horses that are advanced in years, and that have been accustomed to such changes, do not always escape, unless some precautionary measures be taken; for hunters taken up from grass in August, unless due attention be paid to the temperature of the stable, are often the subjects of catarrhal attacks."

Perhaps the summer of 1835 may be produced in proof of the danger of subjecting stabled horses to atmospherical changes. In the first week of June, 78, 80, 82, and 84 degrees of heat were marked by the thermometer. On the 13th, the maximum of heat was 15 degrees less than that of the preceding day; and on the 23rd, the thermometer fell to 47 degrees, succeeded by four days' rain, with wind veering to S.E., back to W., then to N. and N.E., at times furiously high.

We must be allowed two more remarks on the evils of the out-of-door system. Amongst the physical changes which the body is capable of receiving, none is so visibly effected as in the diminished or increased size of the belly; and the latter alternation of form is specially effected by a horse eating grass, and nothing but grass. When a man goes into training for a match against time, or a prize-fight, the first act of his trainer is, to reduce the size of his belly; for, until that is done, his respiration is not free enough to enable him to make such bodily exertions as are essential to augment his natural vigour, and put him into the best possible condition; and this exactly applies to the grass-fed hunter taken up in August. He has exchanged an active uniting frame for a bloated and breathless carcass; and nothing can be done with him until, by purging and severe work, when he is not in a fit state to endure it with impunity, the nature of his frame is altered from weakness to vigorous health. But this must be the work of time, for, although Nature will admit of improvement, she will not allow herself to be hurried by the unreasonable innovations of man.

Our next remarks relate to bodily infirmities and local diseases, to which the horse, by the severity of his labours, is always more or less subject. Several of these, such as splints, spavins, curbs, and ring-bones, are easily checked, if discovered in their incipient state; but when, by being undiscovered for only a short time, a certain progress is made in them, the cure is far from certain, at all events, more difficult. Now, under the old system of the summer's run abroad, this was most frequently the case. Horses, when taken up, were found to have thrown out those excrescences unperceived, which, as soon as they began to work, caused lameness and disappointment; whereas, under the improved system of summering the hunter, they could not have escaped the constant inspection of the groom, and an immediate check would have been given to them. The short-cough, vulgarly and stupidly called a "grass-cough," also too often swelled the catalogue of disasters; and, in six cases out of ten, ended in broken wind or roaring. But it may not here be amiss to address ourselves to owners of hunters, who may adopt either one system or the other of treating them in the summer months; we mean, as regards their legs, the treatment of which now forms a conspicuous feature in the science of the stable, particularly the racing stable. Many valuable animals are ruined in consequence of their owners and their grooms not knowing, perhaps not wishing to know, when their legs are going amiss, and consequently stopping them in their work, before the evil gets a-head. It is irksome, no doubt, to give up the use of a hunter, especially if a favourite one, and in blooming condition; but it is only by such prudent conduct that we can expect a lengthened enjoyment of his services. It is a lamentable fact that, generally speaking, good-constitutioned horses would wear out two sets of legs and feet, which shows the urgent necessity of taking care of them.

We now take our leave of the old, and, we may add, ruinous system of treating hunters in the summer, and proceed to state how, in our opinion (the result of much experience), they ought to be treated in the non-hunting months; as also to offer a few directions for the manage- ment of them when in work. To begin, we are far from averse to resting the hunter in the summer, although we cannot shut our eyes to the fact of horses working hard for a great many years in succession, without experiencing what is here meant by "rest" (namely, not having a saddle on their backs for three or four months), and remaining sound and healthy to the end of a long life. Our great object is, to give the hunter fair play, by preserving, instead of destroying, his condition at the same time that we rest him; and in this we think, that, by preventing exhaustion in his work when he returns to it, we offer him much more than an equivalent for the fancied enjoyment of his "snuffing the air in his native liberty," and "making his bed on the cool ground," so stoutly insisted upon by many of the old school, who will not march with the times, and who cannot divest themselves of prejudices, how dearsoever they may cost them.

The period of "turning up," not "out," hunters towards the close of the season should depend on circumstances. Those whose legs may be doubtful, should be the first thrown out of work; and after them old ones, who, how wellsoever they may go over a country when it is soft, are in danger of breaking down when it becomes hard, as it always does in March, particularly in ploughed countries.

The first act of a groom, when his horses have done their work for the season, is to give them two doses of mild physic, which, by their effect on their legs, will greatly assist him in discovering the amount, if any, of the injury that may have been done to them. Should anything serious exhibit itself, we recommend him (unless he be a first-rate professor of his art) to avail himself of the advice of a veterinary surgeon, as to the steps proper to be taken; and the sooner those steps are taken, the better will it be for his horses. The barbarous, the senseless, practice of blistering, generally the two fore legs, and often the hinder ones also, previously to turning out, under the old system, is now, we are glad to say, abandoned, not only on account of its inutility, but, by the spread of veterinary science, sportsmen have found out that the application of blisters to healthy legs is injurious. The merely irritating the surface of the skin cannot be productive of advantage; on the contrary, it often rouses the sleeping lion, which it is afterwards difficult to pacify. As counteractives of internal inflammation, or as counter-irritants, as they are called, blisters are highly useful; likewise to all bony exostoses, such as splints, spavins, or ring-bones, when in an incipient state; but, in order to render them efficacious, they should be repeated till healthy pus is obtained. If judiciously applied in strains, they are also not unserviceable, as they help to unload the vessels near the affected part. Supposing, then, no serious mischief has been done to the legs of a hunter during the season, we thus proceed in our course of treatment of him:

Previously to stripping him of his clothes, he should go through his second dose of physic, and be treated exactly as if he were in work for at least a fortnight afterwards, with the exception of his having only walking exercise, a diminished allowance of corn, and the wisp, without the brush, applied to his body. We now arrive at a point on which there is some difference of opinion, at all events, one which must be left to the option of the owner; namely, whether, as is the practice in the stables of some of our first-rate sportsmen, the hunter is to be kept in gentle work throughout the summer, or to be thrown entirely aside for a certain number of weeks, varying from nine to twelve? We will, however, state the best method of proceeding under each of these systems.

The horse kept in work (we should rather have said exercise) during the summer, should be exercised very early in the morning on soft, but not wet ground (a low meadow, or rather a marshy common, for example), that his feet may have the advantage of moisture, and also that he may not be tormented by flies, or exposed to a hot sun. Two hours will be sufficient, the pace to be varied alternately from the walk to the jog-trot. It is desirable that a horse thus treated should not be tied up in a stall, but have the enjoyment of a large loose-house. Of course, attention should be paid to his feet, removing his shoes every third or fourth week; and they should be stopped with wet tow every second night. To those who object to this in-door treatment of the hunter on the score of danger to his feet, we can only say, from our own experience, that their fears are groundless; and we also refer them to the first cavalry barrack they pass by, or even to the stables of our innkeepers on the road, in which they will find feet in the highest state of preservation, that have been subject to in-door treatment for many years. We prefer damp tow to any other sort of stopping for horses' feet, because, exclusive of the moisture, it affords a uniform pressure to the frog and outer sole of the foot, which is favourable to their healthy state. Indeed, to some of the finely-formed, open feet which we see on first-rate hunters, the soles of which are apt to be thin, this pressure is most advantageous in preventing a disposition in them to become flat or convex, instead of moderately concave; and for this purpose was the "horse-pad," or "elastic stopping," invented by Mr Cherry, veterinary surgeon of London, which may be preferable to the tow, but not always at hand. When the latter is used, it should be forced into the foot with all the strength of a man's fingers or thumb.

The food of hunters thus summered should be regulated by circumstances. Good flesh, we know, is strength; but that which is generated in comparative idleness only contributes to weakness. Our object, then, should be to prevent a horse, treated in the manner we now allude to, from throwing up much flesh, and we must therefore feed accordingly, and also study constitution. At all events, three small feeds of oats (we do not feel ourselves justified in recommending beans—although we know some sportsmen give them—except in very peculiar cases, such as extreme delicacy of constitution, a disposition to scour, or throw off food) per day are sufficient for any horse, with the addition of a large, sloppy, bran mash twice a-week. As to green food, we recommend that with caution. We approve of its being given occasionally for three or four days in succession, merely as soiling, to attenuate the blood, not to produce flesh; and this repeated now and then at intervals, whilst the green meat (be it what it may) is young, but by no means afterwards. Many grooms mix hay with green food, which, after the first two or three times of giving it, we think a judicious plan. But, be it observed, for reasons we have already given, we object to a hunter acquiring a load of flesh in the summer, the produce of succulent food. A moderate use of alternatives is beneficial throughout the summer to horses which live well, but do not work, as, by their mild and gradual impression, a healthy action of the bowels is kept up, as well as insensible perspiration increased.

The horse not kept in work should be thus treated in the summer: He should run loose in the bay of a barn, or any large covered place where he gets exercise, and breathes fresh air, without exposure to the sun. His physic, food, &c., should be as before directed; but as he is now unshod, and consequently cannot have his hoofs filled with anything which can impart moisture to them, he should be made to stand two hours every day, under cover, in wetted clay. Unless after firing, or severe blistering, when the sedative powers of cold air are efficacious in checking local inflammation, we prefer the hunter being housed throughout the night, to his lying out even in a paddock, as he is less liable to disease and accidents; but we admit that the danger of exposure to night air is greatly diminished by his Treatment having been kept cool throughout the day, by which he is less susceptible of atmospheric influence, or the alternation from warmth to cold, than if his arterial system had been acted upon by exposure to a mid-day sun. The sticklers, then, for the "dews of heaven," and the "bed upon the cool earth," may here indulge their predilections; but, for our own part, we give the preference to the house at night with horses free from disease.

The state of the horses, summered as we have now described, will, in great measure resemble each other, although, as may be supposed, the one which has been kept on in his exercise will be most forward in condition. Neither of them, however, will have lost much of their proper form; but a distinction must be made in our proceedings with them, when preparing them for the forthcoming season. "Suffer a horse to be idle," says Mr Percival (Hippopathology, p. 14), "to do little or no work, and feed him well during the time, and the redundant nourishment floating in his blood will be laid up in the form of fat; put the same animal to work, and that blood, which otherwise would have been turned into fat, will now be transformed into materials of strength." Here, then, it is evident that the horse which has been kept in exercise will require somewhat of a different preparation to the one which has remained unshod, and consequently idle. The first will require very little alteration in his proceedings until nearly the approach of the hunting season, as he will soon be prepared for quick work; but it will be by long-continued slow work, increasing in pace as his condition increases, that the second will be quite himself again, from the relaxed state of his muscles, somewhat redundant flesh, as well as his distended belly. In either case, however, there will be no occasion for all that physicking, galloping, and sweating, to get rid of bad, superfluous flesh, that the grass-fed hunter has been subjected to; for if the groom has done his duty by them, neither of these horses will have accumulated much more flesh than we like to see on hunters when they first begin to work, and when that flesh is good. We would have our second horse, the unshod one, taken into his stable early in August; and during the latter end of that month and the next, in addition to his daily exercise, he should, about three times in a fortnight, have a gentle sweat in clothes, which is best effected in a trot, in a large fallow field that has been lately harrowed down, and which is firm, not soft, to the tread.

But we fancy we hear the question asked, Is it not necessary to give physic to all hunters when the summer is past, and previously to their taking the field again in the winter? We answer, No. The principal end of physicking hunters is to allay excitement, occasioned by severe work and high keep; and the next, for the benefit of their legs. Thus, for example, as the first-named horse (the one that has been in gentle work throughout the summer), will not sweat so easily as the unshod one, a light dose or two of physic may be serviceable to him during his first preparation for the field, say in August or September, as the means of saving his legs, should he be a strong-constitutioned horse, and have thrown up too much flesh. But there is no absolute necessity for physic at this period to horses that have been properly treated throughout the summer, and not suffered to get foul or fat; and it will be given with more advantage to them after they have been some time at work, or nearer to the commencement of the hunting season, which, after the manner of the racing stable, may be termed a second preparation. We think, however, we cannot do better here than to quote the following passage on this subject from the April No., 1835, of the New Sporting Magazine (vol. viii. p. 359), as the ideas exactly correspond with our own.

"To horses summered in the house, physic is now only administered when it is wanted, as is the case with the race-horse; and the groom or his master ought to be able to say Treatment when. There are many directing symptoms with horses in work, which cannot escape an observant eye; and we do not, as formerly, wait for the swollen leg or the running sore. The barbarous practice, also, of three doses in succession (as was the practice with the grass-fed hunter on being stabled), 'the first to stir up the humours, and the last to carry them off,' with two strong urine balls to wind up, by way of a remedy for consequent debility, is also happily exploded. The strength of the dose is likewise greatly diminished, and consequently all danger is avoided. We take upon ourselves to say, there is no more risk attending administering physic to a horse, than there is in giving him a pailful of cold water, perhaps not so much; that is, provided the drugs are good, and well put together. We, however, strongly recommend all sportsmen and others to obtain physic from the profession, as veterinarians bestow much attention on the making of it up, and obtaining the best aloes, in which there is much difference. The sooner it passes off the better; and this will be much expedited by three loose bran mashes on the day preceding the dose, and exercise previously to its working. Recollect there is no virtue in this case in the aloes, beyond doing its duty in clearing and cleansing the bowels. Colonel, when administered to the horse, should not be hurried, as it is intended to act upon the system, and should therefore be given twelve hours previous to giving the purge. Horses whose bowels are difficult to be moved, should be kept short of hay a day or two before they are physicked, with an additional allowance of bran mashes, and encouraged to drink before they experience nausea."

It may, perhaps, be well to state the "directing symptoms" for administering physic to the hunter, which are thus detailed by Nimrod:—"Among the distinguishing symptoms of foulness in a hunter are these: He appears unwell, without any specific disease; his mouth is hot, his eyes look dull, and sometimes yellow; his coat loses some of its usual gloss, and stares between the hip-bones, and on the poll of the neck; his appetite frequently remains good, but he is more than usually anxious for water; his heels are scurfy, and sometimes crack; he stales often, but a little at a time; his urine is highly-coloured, and his excrements hard, and often covered with a slimy fluid; he is dull when at exercise, and frequently coughs without any appearance of having taken cold; he loses flesh, and looks dry in his skin; his legs and ears are often cold, the latter frequently wet after exercise and sometimes deprived of part of their natural covering; his crest falls; the whole tone of his system appears relaxed; and, without his groom exactly knowing why, he is not the horse he was a week ago." (Condition of Hunters, p. 173.) To this we have nothing to add, unless it be to congratulate owners of horses on the terrors of physicking them having vanished with the present improved method of administering the doses; and on the fact, that only a few days' cessation from labour is now required to afford them this relief. We should say, that a hunter is never more fit to go through a sharp run, than on the tenth day after his physic has "set."

But we do not consider that we can close this part of our subject, without a few words on the treatment of the grass-fed hunter, as there are still some who yet abandon him to shift for himself in the summer, and are content to see him return to his stall in August, the very reverse of what he was when he left it in May. Nor is this the worst of it. He cannot be reinstated in the condition in which he was when he went out in May, until hunting is three parts over the following season. However, we will lay down what we consider the most likely plan to pursue, to fit him for the work he is intended for:

From the redundancy of blood and humours, and distension of bowels beyond their proper size, which the grass- Treatment fed hunter acquires, all violent exertion must be avoided, until such obstructions are removed, which must be the work of time. It is in vain to attempt to hurry a horse in this state into condition, but the first step taken should be to have him clipped, for reasons which we shall presently give. Long-continued slow exercise is the chief agent in hardening his muscles, and strengthening his organs of respiration; but all galloping when in the state in which he will be for the first two months, to get off his flesh, is very highly to be reprobed, as his legs will surely suffer by it, if nothing else does. Two light doses of physic may be useful to him, if he have had none given him at grass; and care should be taken not to use the brush to his coat till the month of November be passed, in case he should not be clipped. Again, veterinary science has informed us, that danger always accrues to horses in the vicissitudes of heat and cold, from one state to its opposite; but more from the latter to the former, as an excitant to general inflammation. Horses taken from grass, then, should be put into very cool stables, and the fewer in one stable the better, for at least the first month. Windows should be left open day and night, merely taking the precaution of coarse matting, or anything else that will stop the entrance of flies; and nothing does that better than matting, frequently saturated with water. Having been clipped, and kept out several hours in the day in slow work (which, by the way, grooms are too often shy of), increasing his pace gradually as his condition progresses, the grass-fed hunter may be brought fit to look at by the first week in November; but he will be at least by a stone a worse horse than he was when he was turned out. We are no friends to quacking in either man or beast; but, knowing that mischief to horses so frequently arises from a long respite from work in the winter, unless some preventive measures are had recourse to, we recommend the repetition of a light dose or two of physic to the grass-fed hunter during frost, or even during open weather, about Christmas.

Having recommended the fashionable operation of clipping to the grass-fed hunter, we will give our reasons for having done so. Nine horses out of ten, treated as he has been treated in the summer, break out into a cold sweat, after work, during the first part of the season, the natural consequence of debility; and the dew on their coat has all the chilling influence of a wet blanket on their body. The removal of the coat by the scissors, then, although it is no remedy for the former, prevents the ill effects of the latter; which, by producing cold on the surface of the body, occasions a determination of blood to the lungs, or other important viscera, and is a great enemy to condition. Although we deny the necessity of clipping a horse that has been properly summered (for, admitting that he may have a long coat, he will not in that case break out after work), we allow it the merit of expediting condition, by giving increase of bulk, and promoting the vigour of the horses' renovating powers; and, therefore, in this case useful. Looking at it, however, in another light, we find many objections to it; amongst the greatest of which is the deprivation of the protection of the coat or hair, to an animal so much in want of it as the hunter is, and therefore an outrage on nature. In fact, it is, to a certain degree, a substitute for good grooming, and as such will continue to be in favour with many grooms, as also with such of their masters as submit to be dictated to by them, or who may pay too much regard to appearances.

Having alluded to grooms, a remark or two may not be ill placed. Such of them as have the care of large studs cannot be expected to work, but to overlook those who are under them; and their responsibility is considerable. There is much in the choice of helpers; for none but persons who have narrowly watched it, are aware of the effects of a good dressing to a hunter, not merely in having his skin cleared from impurity, and in improving its elasticity, as well as the tone and colour of the hair, which may be termed the complexion of a horse, but it greatly promotes general health by its effect on the circulation of the blood, as well as all other secretions, and in bad weather is a substitute for exercise.

Good stables are indispensable to the well-doing of hunters, equally so with a comfortable house and a warm bed to those who ride them. Even the veterinary professors have at length acknowledged the benefit of the genial warmth of a stable to horses at work, although, in common with ourselves, they insist on the necessity of well ventilated stables. No doubt it is injurious to any animal to breathe an under-oxygenated air, and the effluvia arising from animal excretions are injurious to eyes and lungs. A hunter should live in a temperature of about 63° of Fahrenheit in the winter, and as much below that point as it can be made in the summer, by means of exclusion of the sun, open doors, &c. But it is essential that a stable in the winter should not only be warm but dry; and if not dry, the ground under and around it should be drained. A delicate horse never arrives at perfection of condition in a damp stable, and it operates powerfully against all others, often being the cause of fever in the feet. Stalls should not be more than six feet wide, nor raised towards the manger; but there should be a slight inclination in the flagging towards the centre of them, to enable the urine to find its way to a drain, which there always ought to be, as it contributes much to cleanliness, and consequently to health. "Loose places," or "boxes," as they are termed, are most desirable for all horses after severe work, and nearly all veterinary surgeons (more especially the late Mr Turner, to whom the public is so much indebted for his illustration of the navicular disease in the foot) have given it as their opinion, that if all horses were suffered to lie loose after work, there would not be half the cases of lameness in the feet that now occur. Desirable as such treatment may be, it is universally impracticable, on account of the space which large studs would occupy; but every sportsman should have boxes about his premises, and his hunters should be invariably put into them for two or three days after work. To their general use there is one objection, although not a serious one. Horses always lying loose are apt to refuse to lie down in stalls, when removed to premises where boxes cannot be had, but they become reconciled to them after a few days. It is, however, the opinion of a celebrated sportsman that if a hunter should have stood his work ten seasons being always tied up, he would have stood it twelve if he had lain loose.

We quote the following extract from Nimrod on Condition of Hunters, on the subject of warm stables. After proving, by the fact of the horse degenerating in all cold countries, that warmth is congenial to its existence, he thus proceeds:—“They who attend to such matters will find that the constitution and habit of a horse undergo a change when kept in a warm stable, favourable, no doubt, to the work he has to perform as a hunter in the stable of a hard-riding man. He is not that gross animal which he might otherwise be, if a hard feeder, and kept in a state more nearly approaching to a state of nature. This we may attribute to the increase of insensible perspiration occasioned by increased circulation, whereby the grosser particles of the body fly off and are got rid of. In this state he would bear some comparison with a well-fed English farmer, when put to perform feats of activity with a man of more refined habits of life, where nineteen times out of twenty he would be defeated.” Again: “As there is an analogy between a man and a horse in work, let us carry it a little further, and ask, Whether, after a hard day’s exercise in the winter, a man would recover sooner if he passed his evening in a warm room, or if he passed it in a bivouac, or Treatment in a room that was cold and damp." He concludes by giving it as his opinion, that if it be possible to get a horse to look well in a cold stable, it is not in the power of a groom to put him into the height of condition in a damp one; and in this we heartily concur.

We subjoin Nimrod's plan of stabling for six hunters. "I would have," says he, "two four-stalled stables, in which I would keep only six horses, that is, three in each; and I would have a box at the end of each. If possible, I would have a southern aspect, with windows opening from the top or downward, or else on a pivot in the centre, and placed so high in the wall, that, when open, the air may be circulated through the stable, without affecting one horse more than another, and the height of the interior should be only twelve feet in the clear. I would have the stalls paved nearly flat, with only a trifling inclination to the centre; in each of which there should be a small grating over the drain, and the stalls should be no more than six feet wide. There should be at least twelve feet behind the horses, and the exterior walls and doors should be very thick. The wooden partition walls of the boxes should be only 9 feet high, with wooden bolts to the doors; and each box should not exceed 10 feet square. The saddle-room, well fitted up with saddle-cupboards, boiler, &c., should be in the centre of the building; in the front of which there should be a passage, under cover, for horses to stand in when their legs are washed. Of ventilation I say nothing, that being a matter of course; but I would have the sides of the stalls 9 feet high at the head, with small iron racks, and pillar-reins for each horse to be dressed in. I should be very particular about the stall-posts, for these are frequently the cause of severe injury. When I went to see the king's stables at the palace at Pimlico, I was astonished to see almost every other horse in them with capped hocks. On inspecting the stall-posts, I perceived the cause. They were of fluted stone, and with angles, which proved that Mr. Nash (the architect) knows nothing about the inside of stables. Stall-posts should be made of wood, quite smooth and circular; and they should extend to the ceiling, or be at least ten feet high."

Paddocks.—Some persons turn their hunters into the fields in the summer, because they have no small paddocks, or any outlets to their buildings, and are averse to their horses remaining all the year round in the house. Nothing, however, is easier than making temporary paddocks, or outlets that will restrain stallions, or any horse that may be put into them, without the chance of their breaking out of them. Let a small space, say 30 or 40 yards, be hurdles around, and the hurdles lined with faggots reared up from seven to eight feet high. The faggots will be all the better for the exposure to the air during a summer; and as horses cannot see through a fence of this sort, they will never attempt to break through it.

Food.—The proper feeding of hunters has much to do with their condition, and likewise with their remaining sound. Food should be proportioned to work, and it should also be of the very best quality. Hay that has been much heated in the stack is above all things to be avoided, as, from its powerful diuretic properties, it debilitates, and creates thirst; and mow-burnt or heated oats are equally productive of mischief. Eight or ten pounds of hay per day are as much as any hunter should eat, and that which is produced on dry upland ground is best. Indeed, we are far from thinking that rich meadow hay, finely scented as it is, and apparently so full of nourishment, is fitted for any description of horse that is required to go fast, and we are quite certain that thousands of horses are destroyed annually by the effects of hay and water. The latter cannot be too soft, and when not so, it should be kept in the stable some days previous to use, and with a small portion of bran in it. Mr Percival (Hippopathology, p. 25) mentions forty-nine horses being killed in one stud, in France, by a disease produced by eating bad hay and oats.

But nothing puts the groom's knowledge of the art of feeding hunters more to the test than the management of such as are either naturally thick-winded, or afflicted with chronic cough; and as in man the digestive organs are oftener than any other disordered, so the respiratory organs in the horse are the most common seat of disease. It is, however, in the power of a groom, by great attention to feeding, keeping the habit of body from becoming foul and plethoric, and well regulated work, to make horses of this description tolerably fit to go with hounds; whereas in bad hands they would be nearly useless, at all events dangerous to ride. Such horses are generally hearty feeders, and when so, should have a setting muzzle, as used with race-horses, put on them on the night before hunting, unless they have been out with hounds within three days. Water also should be sparingly given to them on that day, and not after three o'clock p.m. Frequent mild aperients, or alternative medicines, are very efficacious here; for, as in the human subject the lungs often become the seat of disease as a second cause of indigestion, the state of the digestive organs should be minutely attended to with horses of this description.

A broken-winded horse is never seen in a stud of hunters; but Nimrod's remark on this subject is in accordance with what we have now written upon it. "Most veterinary surgeons," he says, "attribute this disease to the consequences of high keep. Here, no doubt, they are in a great measure correct; but if good grooming were not for the most part a match for the effect of high keep, what would be the fate of our race-horses, which eat almost as much corn as they can swallow from the first month of their existence? Amongst them a broken-winded horse is a rarity."

Many nostrums are prescribed for thick-winded horses—amongst them, carrots in the winter, and green meat in the summer. We approve of a few carrots in the winter, but object to green meat, unless in small quantities. Is not flatulence the distinctive feature of a disordered respiration? And what promotes that equally with loading and distending the stomach with green food? The small dimensions of a horse's stomach evidently show what nature intended him for, namely, to go fast; and the pathologist would very soon convince us that, in proportion as that organ is distended, will the respiratory organs be oppressed. Hence the indispensable practice of not allowing hunters their usual allowance of food and water on the morning of hunting; as also of putting the setting muzzle on the racer the night before he runs. The food most proper for all horses, but particularly for such as are not perfect in their wind, is that which contains most nourishment in the smallest compass or space.

But we must not overlook the treatment of the sound hunter before and after hunting; as we consider the lives of more than half of those hunters which have been lost from the effects of severe chases, to have been lost from want of knowledge of how they should have been treated, at either the one or the other of these periods. Nimrod, in his letters on this subject, doubts whether it be in the power of hounds to maintain a chase long enough to cause the death of a horse, fairly ridden with them, provided that horse have been properly treated, in the summer, and is in what is called strong work, or quite fit to go, on the day of the run. Without stopping to argue this point, which is not capable of proof, we will proceed to show in what state a hunter ought to be taken into the field, to meet foxhounds, giving him fair play; and the man who takes him there when not fit to go, must always be prepared for the consequences.

We consider a hunter, in proper condition, equal to at Treatment least three days' hunting in a fortnight, taking the average of sport, which will, of course, at some certain periods, send him oftener into the field in one given time than in another, as, after a severe day, he should have a week's clear rest. But since the second-horse fashion has been so general, it is impossible to speculate on this point, as it so often happens that one of the two horses the sportsman sends to cover, returns home without having done much. The chief point, however, to be insisted upon is, that the hunter should have a good gallop, causing him to sweat freely, on the day before he goes to hounds, and if for half a mile on rising ground, it will be more favourable to his wind. His food on that day should also be attended to, in reference to his constitutional peculiarities; for, if not the best winded horse in the stud, or given to throw off his meat on his road to cover, he should have no water after three o'clock the preceding afternoon, with the exception of a few swallows to make him relish his corn, on the morning of hunting. Sending hunters out now with full bellies has no excuse; whereas one was found for it, when they left their stables five hours sooner in the morning than they do at present, and returned to them often five hours later. We allude to past days in which there were few artificially made covers, and when foxes were found by the "drag," through long chains of woods, and certainly ran over much more ground than modern foxes do, which, being generally bred near game preserves, run shorter, and are not so stout as formerly.

After Hunting.—The treatment of a horse now will depend on what he has been doing. If not a severe day, no further notice of him is requisite than to ascertain whether he feeds as usual; and if not, an alternative ball, with a liberal allowance of tepid water, will soon restore his appetite, by allaying the over-excitement that has checked it. It is after a severe day's work that danger to a hunter is to be apprehended, the consequence of over-excitement of the vascular system, and he should be in this case narrowly watched. If merely fatigued, such are the restorative powers of the animal, rest, in a large loose box, with an hour's exercise daily in the open air, will soon bring him about; but we should be on the alert against fever. Here, however, we generally have notice—some directing symptoms which cannot be mistaken, such as hurried respiration, extreme thirst, restlessness in his stall, a considerable relaxation of the muscles in the interstices of the hips, reddened eyelids, and a quick pulse. But unfortunately for hard-riding sportsmen, it too often happens, that such is the rapidity with which what is termed accidental inflammation takes place in the horse, that the most prompt measures will not always arrest its progress, and the most common termination of it here is in the feet. Not only does the animal suffer great pain, but should he not cast his boots entirely (the fore feet are most commonly affected), he becomes what is called pomeice-footed, and of no value afterwards as a hunter. Knowing this to be the case, we are advocates for some prophylactic measures to be taken after a very hard day; something repellant and sedative administered, which may not only prevent an inflammatory attack, but, by cooling the system, and consequently restoring the appetite, enable the horse to go sooner into the field again, than if he had been entirely abandoned to his own restorative powers.

But the most critical period with the over-ridden hunter is when he first appears to show distress, which he often does on his road home, or even before he quits the field; and here mistakes have been made, which have caused the death of many a good animal. In the first place, his rider fancies it necessary to drag him home, perhaps many miles on a cold winter's evening, to "his own comfortable stall," than which, just at this time, a large and cold stable, and the first he could be put into, would be far more beneficial to him. Again, he says, "I'll not do anything to him till I get him home, when I will have him bled;" whereas, since all horses that die from exertion beyond the limits of vital power, die from suffocation, it will then be, in all probability, too late, as instant relief is wanted. A stimulating cordial is likewise at this time good (a pint of sherry as good as any other), but both are bad if inflammation has commenced; also keeping up a strong determination of blood to the surface by friction of the body, head, and legs, with warm clothing afterwards on the body and head; a well littered down stall, with plenty of fresh air. A gallon of blood should be at first drawn; and if the increased action of the heart and arteries continues, the horse should be well blistered behind the elbows, and lose another gallon of blood. Blood-letting from the foot veins is also highly to be recommended in cases of extreme exhaustion, after a hard day with hounds. It is a very simple operation, and can never do harm; but we advise it to be performed by a veterinary surgeon.

They who have never before experienced it, may be alarmed by an inward noise in a distressed horse, which may be mistaken for a beating of the heart, whereas it proceeds from a convulsive motion of the abdominal muscles, or muscles of the belly. It is, however, a symptom of deep distress, and is only relieved by relief given to the lungs, by bleeding and other preventive means.

Treatment of Horses' Legs.—We have already said that the management of horses' legs forms part of the science of the stable, and a most important part too. It is nowhere so well understood as in racing stables; but from the violent nature of his work, the hunter is equally indebted to it. The barbarous practice of blistering all four legs previously to turning out is now happily exploded; but as in less violent exertion than following hounds, a certain insecurity from accidents is inseparable from the delicacy of all animal structure, the legs of hunters will occasionally fall amiss. It being useless, however, without stating the extent of the injury, to talk of prescribing remedies, we have only to state, that a very efficient one has been found for the torturing one of firing, in many cases where the actual cautery was considered as the only one. For example, for ligamentary enlargements, cases of enlarged joints, tendons showing symptoms of giving way, or any other appearance in the limbs, of a departure from their primitive tone and vigour. This consists in the application, during the non-hunting mouths, or any other period of rest, of the mercurial charge, in either of the following forms. It consists of the common mercurial plaster (not ointment) of the shops, made up according to the London Pharmacopoeia; and in the proportion of half a pound to a leg, applied in a warm and consequently liquefied state, and when covered by deer's hair, bound to the limb by means of a linen roller. At the end of a fortnight, the stitches of the bandage being decayed, the charge will slough off, when another, if necessary, is put on. It is to the highly absorbent property of mercury that the benefit here derived is to be ascribed; and it is no small recommendation to it that, in addition to the general restoration of the limb, the painful operation of the actual cautery, as also the blemish occasioned by it, are avoided. Major's remedy has also of late years very much superseded firing, and has been applied with great success to the Reiver, Seythian, and several other capital race-horses. It requires, however, to be applied by a very skilful hand, as

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1 The following alternative and sedative medicines are found efficacious at this time:—Cinnabar of antimony, 3 oz.; balsam of sulphur, 2 oz.; camphor, 1 oz.; nitre, 4 oz. To be made into ten balls; one ball a dose. These are known among grooms by the term "red balls."