There still remains the question regarding the equality of the height and of the length of the body of the horse.
This equality, after the proportions previously indicated, would seem bound to appear in all the cases observed. Now, if we measure the examples reproduced in [Figs. 112], [113], and [114], we shall see that sometimes the two dimensions are unequal, the height being greater than the length, or inversely.
Fig. 114.—Horse of which the Length contains more than Two and a Half Times that of the Head, and of which this Dimension (A, B) is Inferior to the Height.
It is the same, if we examine a certain number of specimens; we are able to determine that the proportion chosen in preference by authors is not exactly that which is oftenest met with. It will, very probably, be objected that it is so for the most beautiful types, and that the indifferent ones are generally the more numerous. The essential thing would be to know, above all, if the type of two heads and a half of length and of height is really the only beautiful one. However that may be, of the fifty African horses measured by M. Duhousset, only fourteen possessed the equality indicated; twenty-six were less long than high, and ten more long than high.[68]
[68] E. Duhousset, ‘The Horse,’ Paris, 1881.