1806] Critical Catalogues 63

are few, but of great importance; but the points or external ap- pearances which are confdered indicative of theſe perfections are much more numerous. I am as well convinced as Mr. Cline can be, that the buſineſs of digeſtion nd nutrition depends upon the viſceral fundions; but the effes of the internal operations are beſt determined by external appearances. It is probable that the per- fe&ions of a ſheep may be limited to the lightneſs of the bone, the quantity of fleſh, and to ſuch kind of animal as will lay on thc great- eſt quantity of fat with the leaſt quantity of food, and with the moſt expedition. The anatomift may examine the internal parts with all the accuracy in his power, and ſuppoſe them fßrong and healthy 5; till it is the external appearances which we muſt depend on as the charaeriſtics of perfe&tion. Theſe, it will be readily perceived, are all queſtions of pradtice, and not of ſcience; and the accuracy of the breeder’s opinion muſt, the ſame as in other arts, depend alone on experience and obſervation,”

1 am very certain that the fore parts of thoſe animals would not eſcape the breeder?s attention, and their ſucceſs has proved the accuracy of their knowledge of the ſubje&. But before we can ſay as much in favour of the anatomiſt, let me beg leave to aſk this plain though important queſtion: Whether ïf the lungs were taken out of a number of animals of diferent degrees of perfe&ion, and then preſented to an anatomi#t for his opinion, after minute exami- nation the anatomiſt could determine the different degrees of per- feRion of the reſpeRive animals, with equal certainty as the breed- ers could tell by the examination of their external forms? This nêw dodrine might then perhaps be thought worthy of attention; but till ſame ſuch experiment has been made with ungueſßionable ſucceſs, the external evidence muſt certainly have the preference?

‘The author now gets on horſeback, as if purpoſely to demonſtrate that he is ſo, as much out of his place, as certain other writers have been before him. The anecdote of a horſe being ſold for a hundred guineas, in the Quorndon hunt, would have afforded an opportunity for diſcrimination in that ſpecies of ſill; but when Mr. Hunt, in page 23» tells us—“ how the diferent proportions are beſt adapted to dif- ferent circumſtances, and how be light bone and small muscle of the race horſe are beft calculated for ſpeed,’ we expe nothing: ex ni- hülle, nihil fit.

This ftyle it is, in which our modern veterinary ſolk ſpeculate about running horſes, animals which have generally and proportion- ally the largeſt and heavieſt bones and tendons, of any of their ge- Nus; nor is ſmallneſs of bone in them a peculiar indication of ſpeed, that being the peculiar diſtin&ion, or Zest, of ma ny, perhaps moſt, large fized racers.

From che above writers, when on the ſabject of croſſing, uninform= ed readers may be led to ſappoſe, that our breed of race horſes has been raiſed from a croſs between the Arabian horſe and the native breed of this country, a meaſure no breeder for the turf ever purſued, or probably ever thought of, Yet croſling has ever been a favourite praRice on the turf,