THE DOMESTIC HORSE. 177

was too tall for his little master to mount and who used to
put his head down to the ground and allow the boy to
bestride his neck and then by gently elevating his head help
him to slide on to his back. Horses have been known to
allow liberties to children that they would not allow to their
elders, a remarkable illustration of which is given by Cap-
tain Brown. A hunter who always violently resented any
attempt on the part of his grooms to trim his fetlocks, was
once the subject of conversation in his master’s house, when
the master defied any man “to perform the operation singly.”
On the following day when passing through the stable-yard
he was astonished and alarmed at seeing his youngest child,
who had been an unnoticed listener to the conversation the
night before, with a pair of scissors, clipping the fetlocks of
the horse’s hind legs, the horse watching the operation with
evident satisfaction. It is, however, as between horses and
dogs that the truest affinity appears to exist of animals of
different families, and numerous anecdotes are told in illus-
tration of these friendships. Captain Brown gives the follow-
ing: “Doctor Smith, a practising physician in Dublin, had no
other servant to take charge of his horse while at a patient’s
door, than a large Newfoundland dog; and between the two
animals, a very good understanding subsisted. When he
wished to pass to another patient without remounting, he
needed but to give a signal to the pair, who followed him
in the most perfect good order. The dog also led the horse
to the water, and would give him a signal to leap over a stream.
While performing this on one occasion, the dog lost hold of
the reins, when the horse, having cleared the leap, trotted
back to the dog, who resumed the reins.”

“A gentleman in Bristol had a greyhound which slept in
the same stable, and contracted a very great intimacy with
a fine hunter. When the dog was taken out the horse
neighed wistfully after him; he welcomed him home with a
neigh; the greyhound ran up to the horse and licked him .

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