to the action of the hind legs, and nothing else remains for him than a speedy retreat when this becomes dangerous. Something like this must be the key to this difference of opinion; for a rifle or other gun that kicks will only hit your shoulder the harder the looser you hold it, and perhaps knock you down if you hold it quite clear, or at least knock the wind out of you. a man sits in the right place he does not need to rise in his stirrups for any such purpose; and if he does not, the rising in the stirrups, and thereby abandoning his whole seat, may or may not help him.

case.

If

Perhaps we should never have attempted writing a single line about the hunting seat but for one consideration-it is this: The majority of our cavalry, yeomanry, and mounted volunteers are hunting men, and if there really were such an enormous difference between a good cavalry and a good hunting seat, as many people seem to suppose, it would be simply a very hopeless But is there this great difference? Mr Apperley says, "Be assured that the military seat with very long stirrups will not do here, however graceful it may appear on a parade." Fortunately this great authority gives us in his own book a drawing intended to represent this graceful seat, which (see Plate V), on closer inspection, turns out to be Harry Lorrequer's "tongs across a wall.” Well, no doubt, this won't do for hunting, nor indeed, as far as we can see, for any other good purpose beyond exhibiting the high polish of a man's boots, spurs, and stirrup - irons, the rider being in uniform scarcely making his seat a good military one; but of this more anon. Mr Apperley has, however, given us two other figures representing his notions of good and bad hunting seats, which are here presented to the reader.

On the other hand, there can be no doubt of the total inapplicability of the wash-ball seat to military purposes; and, after all, one comes to the conclusion that the essential difference between any two good forms of seat is not so enormous as is commonly represented. If a man "sits on horse ape-like," as the Hungarian phrase is, he will scarcely succeed in any kind of riding; and we believe that the great secret of good horsemanship in general consists in avoiding exaggerations of all kinds. The saddle, the position of the stirrup, and the peculiar object in view, may and must induce modifications of the seat; but riding is still riding, and the mechanism of the horse's construction cannot be altered by mere fashion.

Road-Riding. The road-rider, although not required to take fences, or permitted to ride at full gallop like the fox-hunter, has his own difficulties to contend with: he has to do his work on a hard inelastic surface, and not on grass fields or ploughed land; he must be prepared to make sharp turns, and to meet all sorts of provocations to shying and restiveness, of which the hunting man knows little or nothing; in fact, handiness, safety for himself, and a due regard for his horse's legs, are much more important considerations for him than great speed. It is all very well to say that a roadster or hack should possess the qualities requisite to insure the above, but all does not depend upon the horse; if the seat of the rider be faulty, a break-down will ensue sooner or later.

Let us take the hard road, in the first instance, into consideration. When one body strikes, falls, or impinges on another, to use a scientific phrase, it receives

F

the blow back sooner or later. This is, as we all know, what is called recoil or rebound; the elastic surface gives back the blow later and more gradually; the inelastic one sooner and more suddenly. The horse's leg being elastic, itself receives but a small shock from the elastic turf, this being divided between both nearly equally; on the hard road nearly the whole recoil is transmitted back to the horse's body through its limbs, and this is nearly equal to the weight of both rider and bearer. There are various means by which this recoil may be diminished in intensity, to the great ease of the horse. One of the most obvious is to distribute the weight as nearly as possible over the middle of the horse's back, which is constructed, as we have shown, in such a manner as to admit of a certain amount of elastic action in a vertical direction-in plain words, up and down. Two men can carry a greater weight with an elastic pole on their shoulders than with a stiff one; and if the burden be not exactly in the centre of it, the man to whom it is nearest will get more of the recoil from the ground than the other one. Now, taking into account that the road-rider does not want great speed, and has at the same time an inelastic surface to deal with, there can, we think, be little doubt that, by placing his saddle and himself over the middle of the horse's back, he will save his bearer and himself a large amount of recoil. If, however, in this position he thrusts his whole foot into the stirrup, he thereby throws away a further chance; for, by merely resting with the ball of his foot on the bar of the stirrup, his knee being slightly bent, he superadds the elastic action of his own legs at knee and ankle to that of the