THE HORSE, 87

Ozper SOLIDUNGULA,

Equus Capattus.—The Horse.

This useful and most beautiful quadraped is too well
known to need much description. An old writer, Camera-
rius, says, that a perfect horse should have the breast broad,
the hips round, and the mane long; the countenance fierce
like a lion, a nose like a sheep, the head, legs, and skin of
a deer, the throat and neck of a wolf, and the ear and tail
of afox. The hoof of the horse is broad and undivided ;
the teeth are of three kinds; the eyes large and rather pro-
minent; the ears small and erect. The horse is well fitted
to live on dry open plains, which are covered with short
herbage, much better suited to his lips and teeth, than any
other kind of food, but he must also be well supplied with
water, of which he takes an ample quantity. In a state of
nature he herds with his fellows, and they may be seen in
droves consisting of several hundreds; the animals are quite
inoffensive, and form a most animated and interesting
picture, their fine forms thrown into a variety of graceful
attitudes, rearing, curvetting, or engaging in the race,
Byron thus beautifully describes the manners of a herd of
wild horses :—