54 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A mob of ponies feeding together in the open air will use their 

 heels to each other most liberally. This is a painful but undeni- 

 able fact, known to every breeder. When running wild on their 

 native hills they are extremely pugnacious, and will fight most 

 determinedly, not only with each other but with larger horses, 

 frequently to the discomfiture of the latter. So far true, but our 

 romancer the Shetland Munchausen goes on to affirm that if 



" Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin, 

 Tick and Quick and Jill and Jin " 



are but congregated loosely together in a shed, or other building, 

 they will no longer quarrel. Amity will reign where hopeless dis- 

 cord formerly prevailed. We can only say, Try the experiment ! 

 We have. The whole thing is a baseless fiction. They are patient 

 and enduring, these ponies of Linga ; * in many cases they may 

 be trained to a docility and sagacity almost human, but there is a 

 point with most of them such, at least, is our experience of them 

 indoors as well as out when their patience gives way to posi- 

 tive ferocity, and when once their blood is up they are not so 

 easily pacified. An experience we once had with a recalcitrant 

 riding pony in a rural smithy it was his first shoeing will never 

 fade from our recollection, nor, we imagine, from that of the vil- 

 lage Yulcan. 



Never groom a Shetland pony as you would an ordinary horse. 

 They should be well brushed, and their manes and tails combed ; 

 but the indiscriminate use of the curry-comb is positively hurtful 

 to them. More especially is this the case if the animal is to be 

 left much out of doors. Observe one of them in the open air on 

 a wet day, and you will notice that the rain runs off his coat as 

 off a duck's back. But if the " set " be removed, the coat will no 

 longer be water-proof. It is scarcely necessary to add that, by 

 immemorial custom, the mane and tail should be lightly trimmed 

 and no more. Nothing can be more incongruous than the sight 

 of one of them closely cropped. The tail should just be off the 

 ground. So careful are Shetland dealers in this respect that we 

 have often received animals dispatched by them with the tail 

 thoughtfully tied in a double knot, in case of accidents on ship- 

 board. 



The Shetland pony is shy of a strange owner, and at first re- 

 quires to be jealously watched in a new home, as being apt to bolt 

 on the first opportunity. Unfailing tradition steps in here and 

 gravely informs us that a straying pony, however far removed 

 from the land of its birth, will invariably shape its course for the 

 north in the direction, that is, of its native home. Needless to 



* Linga, or ITcath Isle, the ancient name for Shetland, now on the lucus a non lucendo 

 principle, heath or heather being practically extinct. 



