the falling of a chimney; but it would matter a great deal whether it arose from accident or disease; as, in the latter case, he might live under the constant dread of a return of the complaint in some other part. But he must be a most unlucky wight if he should lose his other leg from the same kind of accident that lost him the first.

It is something like this as regards vice in an animal if it is hereditary, or proceeds from a bad disposition altogether, it then becomes very difficult to eradicate; if, on the other hand, it arises from treatment, we must then investigate what that treatment was, that, by adopting its opposite, we may, by time and patience, undo what never ought to have been done.

If, for instance, a colt becomes self-willed, from the timidity or too much lenity on the part of the breaker (a circumstance that does not occur once in a hundred times), it then becomes necessary, by determined resolution, to show him that he has at last met with his match; and the fortiter in re must immediately and determinedly follow the failure of the suaviter in modo. And here boldness, strength, and resolution on the rider's part will generally produce a proper effect without resorting to punishment; for the animal is only like a spoiled child, self-willed, from having been allowed to have his own way. And even supposing what he does amounts, in point of fact, to the same thing as vice--such, for instance, as refusing to go the way we want him—it is only vice from habit, not vice from a sulky, savage, or violent disposition; though he would probably be made to evince one, or all, of these propensities by undue punishment. If the spoiled child, and the spoiled colt find that by resistance they gain their ends, they will ever resist where compliance is in any way contrary to their own inclinations; but if they find that they always get the worst of the contest, they will soon learn that it is easier, and consequently pleasanter, to themselves to obey at first than at last. To obey is all we want of them. To teach them that they must do this, it is by no means in all cases necessary to also teach them to dread, and consequently to hate us. With the colt of an absolutely vicious, savage disposition, advocate as I am for gentle usage of horses, and more particularly of young horses, I am aware a different conduct must be pursued; for if we cannot eradicate his vices, we have no resource but to make him afraid to show them; in such a case, the best we can make him is a subdued savage. Instances, though rare, have been known of the zebra being brought to this, but we can seldom or ever get further with him, which shews him to be fera natura, while the horse is only wild from the want of being brought in contact with man.

We will now look a little at some of the different modes in which horses exhibit vice.

I must here take the liberty of digressing a little from my subject, while I solicit the lenient construction of my reader on any occasion when I may mention myself, my own horses, or circumstances that may have occurred relative to myself or them; the writer who is egotistical to recount his own exploits renders himself most deservedly liable to both ridicule and reproof. But I hope and trust, when I bring forward what may have happened to myself, it will be seen that I only do so to show that what I may write, or the opinion I may promulgate, is founded on practical experience. It is certainly egotism in se, but a description of

it, that I trust, when brought forward, will be held as not only par donable, but justifiable. Now to return to my subject.

BITING AND KICKING IN THE STABLE.

This would appear, on the first consideration of it, as positive proof of a regular savage disposition; but to set against this, how are we to account for numbers of horses being vicious in the stable, but never attempting to bite or kick at either master or stranger when out? I had a mare with such a habit. In the stable she would be certain to lay hold of any one, if not watched; out of it, no quieter animal lived; even in the stall, once get hold of her head-collar, she would eat bread or corn out of your hand, and even lick it; but the next moment, if loosed, and you turned your back, she would seize you to a certainty; it seemed an impulse she could not withstand; still, if her biting was from a savage disposition, or hatred of man, why would she not bite out of the stable? A friend of mine had lately a horse who would let any one handle him in the stable or out; but if you laid hold of his neck, as we frequently do by way of feeling the crest, he would seize one with all the ferocity of a bull-dog, and not let go very readily afterwards. Now this objection to be handled could not arise from any natural ferocity, for under such influence he would as readily have bitten on any other part of his body being touched, or on being approached. I make no doubt, had every circumstance that had occurred to him from a colt been traced, a cause for this peculiarity would be found, as it would for many other acts of the animal which we set down to sheer vice; and he gets very improperly, illadvisedly, and indeed unjustly, punished for that which does not exist.

I will here bring forward an instance where a most valuable horse, the property of a friend, lately died a martyr to his resistance being set down to violence and impatience, when it solely arose from intense agony. He had had his arm broken by a kick from another horse, who got loose in the same stable. One of our leading veterinary surgeons was sent for, who very skilfully set and spliced up the broken bone, and the horse was put in a sling for support till the bone should have time to unite. He was one of the most placid and perfectly harmlessly disposed animals in existence; but on his fore parts being raised up, he resisted most violently, nor could all the efforts of his groom, and those about him, in any way pacify him. No horse under the influence of hydrophobia could struggle more madly. This, with the exception of short intervals (when he remained quiet from absolute exhaustion), continued for two or three days, when he died frantic. On the body

of the poor animal undergoing post mortem examination, it was found that two or three of his ribs had also been broken; of course the pressure of the sling suspending him must have caused unspeakable agony, and accounted at once for his violence. I have no doubt many horses are punished, when little more to blame than the one I allude to. Every thing was done that art, ingenuity, or money could command, to render his suspension as comfortable as possible; there was only one thing wanting, namely, the suffering animal being able to tell why he resisted, and this disability is the occasion of more suffering and more unjust punishment where horses are concerned than we imagine.

It may be said, in refutation of my excuse for many acts of apparent vice in the horse, that no excuse can be offered for his biting or kicking

us, or attempting it, when we do nothing to hurt or annoy him. I will beg permission to ask any one making such an observation, did he never strike at-nay, kill, a wasp or bee that merely buzzed about his ears? Why does he do so? He has perhaps been stung by one or both such insects, or, at all events, knows they can sting; he fears therefore they will hurt him, and strikes at them to drive them away. The horse does the same thing. I will answer for it, he has often been much more hurt by man than man ever was by a wasp. It will be said by some, that the certain death of a hundred animals, of no pecuniary value, is not to be put in competition to the smallest pain to man. I am not quite satisfied of this, for I daily see many common animal propensities in man, but no superfluity of animal virtues.

I have known several horses who were vicious as to kicking in the stable become perfectly quiet towards those they got accustomed to; but I never knew, or heard of, one biter that left off the practice of biting. It is a vice or habit incurable.

One thing is quite certain; let vice arise from what cause it may, no man should purchase a vicious horse if he intends him for any purpose that would occasion his being placed in the hands of strangers; and this will hold good more with an inveterate biter than with the horse that kicks. It is easy to watch and consequently avoid a horse's heels ; but a regular biter is all but certain to pin a stranger; in fact, he often catches those aware of his tricks, and his bite is awful.

There is another, though rather uncommon, vice that some horses show in the stable, this is

SQUEEZING, OR IN STABLE PHRASE, "PINNING ONE" AGAINST THE

STANDING.

This very singular habit certainly looks more like determined vice than either biting or kicking, both of which are the act of the moment; the other seems like a premeditated intent to injure us, and injure us it certainly would, most seriously, if he caught us just at the place and moment when we should derive all the full benefit of the favour intended.

The horse who has this vice watches till either in going up to, or in coming away from him, we are about opposite to his hip; he then, without any preparatory motion to put us on our guard, throws his hind quarters, with all the force he is capable of, against the standing. Should he catch us in certain positions, it would be almost certain death; but in any way, if caught at all, we must sustain serious injury.

I can in no way soften down this vice into a trick, or act of the moment; and if horses were tried for their lives, every jury would very properly bring this in malice prepense; in fact, premeditated murder, if death ensued. Still we must bear in mind, that probably the animal, even here, tries to injure us lest we may injure him. Or from hatred of us for injuries received, he might be like Othello, not naturally savage, but have been vexed and worked on "in the extreme." He is, however, a decidedly vicious and dangerous animal, and one who ought to have numberless redeeming qualities to induce us to put up with this most vile habit.

I was once very near being so lovingly squeezed by a gentleman of this sort, that, had his kind intentions taken effect, I should not now be

recording the circumstance. I was on a visit to a clergyman, and concluding all his flock, biped and quadruped, to be well disposed, from the precept and example of the truly worthy and amiable pastor, I went up to one of his horses in his stall. Had I done this as carelessly and slowly as many men do, I should have been nailed; but making at once up to his head, I was too quick for him; but he threw himself against the standing with such force that it creaked again. Of course, in coming away, I timed it so that he had cunning enough to be aware it was no use troubling himself about me. On mentioning the affair at breakfast, I was congratulated on my escape, and was told he would thus serve any one; but the man who fed him this shewed the horse was no fool; so I begged permission to give him a few practical lessons that I thought would do him good. To effect this I got the groom to procure some good old hard furze, stiff as a black thorn; this I got fastened to the near side of the standing, just in the place where the horse would throw his hind quarter, so as to make about as comfortable a lounging place for him as were the famed barrels of old, lined with spikes, in which they amused criminals by rolling them down a hill. All being prepared, I went up to the horse in a manner that made him sure I was to be pinned; but on the first stir of his body I jumped back, he threw himself with fell force against the thorns; on doing which, quick as his motion had been, it was still quicker in jumping back again. He snorted, and as Mrs. Glass says of some dishes, he actually was a horse " surprised." In an hour I repeated this. He had forgotten my pointed reprimand, so his good intentions got the same reward as before. This time I jumped up to his head, when the villain twisted his hind quarters round as far as he could, and kicked at me. This certainly was determined vice, and many men, as the groom avowed he would have done, would have applied "a broomstick to his hide." What would have been the consequence of doing this? The horse trying to crush an approaching stranger no doubt arose either from fear, or hatred, or both. The application of a broomstick I do not conceive to be likely to diminish either the one or the other; but probably, instead of curing the one vile habit, would have induced the horse to use his heels to prevent any one entering his stall at all, or, what is quite as likely to have been the result, to have lashed out at every one who came within his reach in any situation.

But, to make the anecdote as short as possible, after three or four practical lessons, though from habit he made, for a day or two, a threatening motion, he thought better of it, and did not attempt to close with my furze. I caressed him constantly, and though at first he drew himself close up to the manger on my going up to him (which satisfied me that fear was the origin of the vice), in a few days he left that off, and we parted confident friends. I left my barricade as it had been put up, and I heard, six months afterwards, that the horse had never repeated his former vice; what he might have done if put in other hands or another stable I cannot say-I merely state the fact as it was.

The low and uninformed seem to consider that violence and blows are the sovereign panacea for all faults, whether those of brutes or the human kind. It may at first appear somewhat unfeeling when I say that if I see a dumb animal and a man or boy corrected, the former excites my

pity more than the latter; but I hope to convince my reader that I entertain this feeling on something like reason and defensible grounds.

Few men are so perfectly brutal as to correct a boy until he has committed that which he has often been told is wrong, consequently he knows that it is so-the unfortunate dumb animal has no such insight given him, and a thick-sculled lout, who may have just sense enough to know what it is desirable a horse should, or should not do, will suppose the animal knows the same, when in all probability he knows no such thing. But independent of this, such is the arrogant disposition of man, unless his disposition is refined by education, and consequent reflection, that whether his will be right or wrong, any opposition to it is, in his eyes, a crime meriting severe punishment.

"He knows well enough that he is doing wrong," is a constant reply from a stupid fellow, if remonstrated with on any improper severity to a horse, or any other animal. We will say a horse kicks at a man; he then flies up into the closest corner of his stall, and perhaps trembles. "There," would exclaim the lout, "now see whether or not he knows it ;" and he takes this as proof, expecting another person of more sense to receive it as conviction also; but it is no proof at all-the horse had probably kicked before, and been broomsticked for it; he knows this much, and fears a repetition of the punishment. If the horse could speak, he would say, and most probably with truth and justice on his side, "I have generally found man a tyrant to me; any docility on my part seldom rewarded so as to encourage, but any failure of doing the will of man punished with unmerited severity; in fact, when he approaches me, it is usually to harass or annoy me in some way-am I not justified in kicking at him to keep him away?" If such an appeal was made to me, I should answer it, as I did one made to me by a young ensign, relative to a difference between him and the major of the regiment, in which the ensign was quite in the right. "Would it not," said he, "be quite right in me bringing the matter before a court-martial?" "Quite right, my dear fellow," said I, "but very imprudent." Why imprudent? Any military man can, if he pleases, tell the enquirer.

(To be continued).

NOTES OF THE CHASE.

BY CECIL.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE HUNTING SEASON IN HAMPSHIRE. Cub hunting perchance is not exactly the favourite pastime with every man who aspires to the denomination of a fox hunter, at least it does not rank high with those who desire to obtain fame for hard riding. The object usually desired being to kill the cub near the covert in which he is found-and, therefore, if an old fox goes away, the hounds are usually stopped, especially if there be others in the covert little chance of a burst over the country can be anticipated. Woodland hunting is a passage in the "Noble Science," respected