ODD-TOED UNGULATES (pERISSODACTYLA) 279 



pace and therefore to be more suitable for ladies to 

 ride. We find in " The Extracts from the Household 

 Book of the Lord North ""^ the following item : 

 " 1581, Nov. 20. Making a horss amble, . . . xiijs. iiijd." 



Ambling horses, says Dr. Bateson^t ^' move the two 

 legs of the same side of the body together or nearly 

 so, while in trotting the fore leg of one side moves 

 almost with the hind leg of the other.^^ The same 

 author considers that amblers or pacers are born and 

 not made, though he says ^^ horses may be trained 

 with more or less success to adopt either gait, but 

 the distinction between natural pacers and natural 

 trotters is a fairly sharp one.^^ 



Hobbies were bred in Ireland. They were small, 

 docile, and for the most part amblers, and therefore 

 regarded as pleasant to ride. 



English race-horses or thoroughbreds are a dis- 

 tinct breed, which has been established within 

 the last hundred and fifty years, and is the result 

 of the interest in horse-racing, which arose in 

 the time of James I, and increased greatly after 

 the Restoration under Charles II. Arab horses 

 had been frequently imported to improve the 

 breed, but Charles II sent his Master of the Horse, 

 Sir John Fenwick, to the Levant to purchase both 

 mares and horses. One of these mares, the " Why 

 Not " royal mare, is in the pedigree of '' Eclipse,^^ 

 from whom most of our modern race-horses are 

 descended. He had also in his pedigree several 

 notable Barbs, Turks, and Arabians, the most famous 



* ' Archseologia,' xix, 301, 



t ' Menders Principles of Heredity,' p. 32. 



