HORSEWATCHING

How much do horses sleep? How fast can horses run? How many horse breeds are there? Now Morris answers these and 40 other equine questions with the same sort of good-natured mini-essays that made Dogwatching and Catwatching (both 1987) so enjoyable. He is again thankfully short on sentimentality ("if the dog is man's best friend, then the horse could well be described as man's best slave") and comes up with some startling tidbits: with its huge eyes—bigger than an elephant's or a whale's—and expert night vision, "the horse is a nocturnal animal!"; horsedom's Methuselah was Old Billy, who died in 1722 at age 62 and was still "working" at age 59. (Incidentally, horses sleep only three hours per every 24; the speed record for quarterhorses is 43 mph; and there are 207 breeds of horses.) A must-read for horse fans.