ed: tho' even here there is an attempt made to improve nature by art: the hair must be adorned with ribbons; and the bottom of the tail clipped square, which adds heaviness, and is certainly so far a deformity.
The same absurd notions, which have led men to cut off the tails of horses, have led them also to cut off their ears. I speak not of low grooms, and jockies; we have seen the studs of men of the first fashion, misled probably by their grooms and jockies, producing only cropt-horses.
When a fine horse has wide, lopping ears, as he sometimes has, without spring or motion in them, a man may be tempted to remove the deformity; but to cut a pair of fine ears from the head of a horse, is, if possible, a greater absurdity, than to cut off his tail. Nothing can be alleged in it's defence. The ear neither retards motion, nor flings dirt.
Much of the same ground may be gone over on this subject, which we went over on the last. With regard to the utility of the ear, it is not improbable, that cropping may injure the horse's hearing: there is certainly less concave surface to receive the vibrations of the air. I have heard it also asserted with great confidence, that this multilation injures his health; for when a horse has lost that pent-house, which nature has given him over his ear, it is reasonable to believe the wind and rain may get in, and give him cold.
Few of the minuter parts of animal nature are more beautiful than the ear of a horse. The contrast of the lines is pleasing; the concavity and the convexity, being generally seen together in the natural turn of the ear. Nor is the proportion of the ear less pleasing. It is contracted at the insertion, swells in the middle, and tapers to a point. The ear of no
