COMFORT OF GOOD SADDLES.

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In ninety-nine out of every hundred cases they are met with on the off-side in the lady's, and on the nearside in the gentleman's horse, thereby proving that for the most part the seat is not straight and square in either.

No one but a saddler of the very highest reputation should be trusted to manufacture a lady's saddle, or continual annoyance will be the result, by the saddle being fully six months out of the first twelve in the unscientific hands of the maker, for the purpose of undergoing a thousand and one alterations, the causes for which should never have existed.

Two good saddles are sufficient for any lady-one for a broad and round horse, and the other for a narrow and flat-sided one.

Great care should be taken by the lady that the proper saddles be put on the proper horses, or mischievous results will be sure to follow, both with regard to the horses and saddles. This is, of course, the proper business of grooms, but they are too apt, when full of work, to put on whichever saddle happens to be cleaned and properly adjusted at the time, without the slightest consideration or reference to its suitability to the horse in question.

THE COVERT HACK.

Most men expect the covert hack to take them from five to twenty-five miles to meet hounds, at from ten to eighteen miles an hour, and at this pace he may have to go up to his hocks in mud, or on a road as hard

as adamant. Both the walking and trotting paces are superfluous, and a good, even, and moderately high gallop is all that is required in the covert or galloping hack. He should be a pocket edition of a first-class steeplechaser, both in make and shape and action, and every other particular save size.

He should not exceed 14 hands 3 in., or he will not be so quick in his stride as is desirable for getting safely over uneven and rough ground, in which he will require the fine shoulders of the steeplechaser to enable him to preserve his pace without tiring to nothing under the weight.

When I say that the covert hack must be precisely similar in breeding, make, shape and action to the steeplechaser, I must not be understood to mean every galloping hack for every weight, from twelve stones to twenty, but from ten stones to fourteen. Above this weight a more coarsely-bred animal must be put up with, and the pace must decrease from eighteen to thirteen miles within the hour.

For such weights a fast-trotting cob is the best description of animal for going to cover at a quick pace; and a cob that can be found to accomplish fourteen miles over rough ground within the hour, under from fourteen to twenty stones, will always command a high price, and is very difficult to procure.

The best covert hacks for galloping are to be found in little cast-offs from the racing stables, which, when possessed of sufficient thickness and action, invariably obtain the greatest character for pace and stoutness.

INTEMPERANCE NO VICE.

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In either case it is necessary that the hack have good sound legs and feet; but blemishes matter little, such as cuts, scars, and being blind of an eye. Manners, also, in the covert hack are of little or no importance; indeed, to please most hunting men, they should do everything short of actually running away; and even this is not always objected to, but is sometimes deemed an advantage by sportsmen who are a little too fond of their beds on a cold morning.

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CHAPTER I.

DISEASES OF NERVES.

APOPLEXY.

Apoplexy, seldom makes its appearance in the stable; but when it does show itself, it can generally be traced to bad management, such as improper feeding immediately preceding quick work, bad ventilation, &c.

It is usually fatal, and the symptoms are marked by extreme drowsiness, the respiration at the same time becoming unusually slow.

The disease consists in lesion of the vessels of the brain, the effusion of which causes pressure. The effusion in nine cases out of ten consists of blood and not serum.

Immediately the symptoms are apparent active measures must be resorted to, as being alone likely to be of the slightest avail. An aloes drench, of a strength of at least seven drachms, and one scruple of calomel, should be administered, and the horse should then be freely bled, and the mane and poll cropped closely, and an active blister, consisting of cantharides, applied all over the head and neck.

If the horse show any signs of recovering, gentle exercise and a spare diet, with the occasional use of alteratives, will be the best course of treatment for some time.

TETANUS-LOCK-JAW.

Tetanus can only be properly described as a permanent and not a periodical spasm; but whether the extreme rigidity of the muscles is caused by a portion or the whole of the nervous system being in a state of extreme irritation and tension, seems uncertain.

It does not appear that the horse loses his powers of sensation in this disease.

Properly speaking lock-jaw is limited to the muscles of the jaw and throat; but when a more extensive contraction of muscles takes place, it is termed tetanus.

In the horse tetanus is generally of the acute and not chronic nature, and, consequently, is usually fatal.

I have heard of a case of tetanus caused by a stub in the foot terminating fatally in two hours, but generally the fatal advances of this disease are more gradual.

The symptoms are readily discerned by stiffness in the neck gradually increasing, which renders any attempt at movement of the head very painful. The difficulty of mastication and swallowing soon follows, and, in acute cases, becomes almost immediately utterly impossible. Very painful convulsive efforts attend any attempt at swallowing.

The spasms around the neck soon become violent, and the head is for the most part retracted, and the

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