WHAT SORT OF HORSE TO BREED 205 



that many of the privately owned Arabs (so called) 

 are purchased.' Which shows the value attributed in 

 India to even an inferior or half-bred Arab, and 

 brings to our minds that few of the Bombay so- 

 called Arabs were at that time pure. And elsewhere 

 he regrets the introduction of so many counterfeit 

 Arabs into India. At all events, that is an authority 

 for the Arab sire. 



An article in the Australasian, October 6, 1900, 

 says that ' the bone of the Arab horse is admitted to 

 be of very close texture, superior to that of our 

 English thoroughbreds ; that it is this superiority of 

 the bone that renders the Arab horse so valuable 

 for improving a rundown stock.' This can be set 

 off against Mr. Day and his dodo. Before reading 

 the article I had to kill a young stallion, who, un- 

 fortunately, got his leg broken between the rails 

 playing with another young stallion on the other 

 side, and my groom noticed the extraordinary hard- 

 ness of the bone. He had not previously heard or 

 read of this peculiar hardness. I showed the bone 

 to the late veterinary surgeon Dr. Horton, who had 

 attended my horse, and he was much struck with it. 



The Australasian also says ' that the advantage 

 of a dash of Arab blood was fully recognised by all 

 Australian Bushmen and stock-riders, than whom few 

 men have better opportunities of testing the stamina 

 of the saddle-horse.' 



' Bruni,' in xho. Australasian, September 15, 1900, 

 writes that he had conversed with many old horse- 



