The Horse; With a Treatise on Draught (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1866 Excerpt: ... On a journey, a horse should be liberally supplied with water. When he is a little cooled, two or three quarts may be given to him, and after that, his feed. Before he has finished his corn two or three quarts more may be offered. He will take no harm if this is repeated three or four times daring a long and hot day. It is a judicious rule with travellers, that when a horso begins to refuse his food, he should be pushed no farther that day. It may, however, be worth while to try whether this does not proceed from thirst, as much as from exhaustion, for in many instances his appetite and his spirits will return soon after he has partaken of the refreshing draught. CHAPTER VII. THE ZOOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE HORSE. Therb are so many thousand species of living beings, some so much resembling each other, and others so strangely and altogether different, that it would have been impossible to have arranged them in any order, or to have given any description that could be understood, had not naturalists agreed on certain peculiarities of form which should characterise certain classes, and other lesser peculiarities again subdividing these classes. The first division of animals is into vertebrated and imvertebrated. Vertebrated animals are those which have a cranium, or bony cavity containing the brain, and a succession of bones called the spine, and the divisions of it named vertebrce, proceeding from the cranium, and containing a prolongation of the brain, denominated the spinal marrow. Invertebrated animals are those which have no vertebrae. The horse, then, belongs to the division vertebrated, because he has a cranium or skull, and a spine or range of vertebrae proceeding from it. The vertebrated animals are exceedingly numerous. They include man, quadrup...