FERAL HORSES 175 



discovery of Gippsland in 1842. On the Manero 

 table-land, which lies on the New South Wales 

 side of the border, and extends up to Kosciusko and 

 Kiandra, and Sunit, as also from the country to the 

 heel of the dividing range, I have no doubt that 

 horses escaped and became wild. Of course these 

 have been of all kinds. On the high mountain 

 plateau which lies between the upper Tambo River 

 and the sources of the Buchan River I have seen 

 horses which can best be described as dwarfed 

 cart-horses, and probably were the descendants of 

 light draught stock used by prospectors and miners 

 in the early times of gold-discovery — after 1850. 

 The country they lived in is very high and cold, 

 being covered in winter with snow, and altogether ill 

 adapted to feral horses. In the warmer but very 

 hilly country which lies to the east of the Snowy 

 River in Victoria . . . the horses were of a much 

 better stamp, in many cases showing good breeding, 

 partly owing to the excellent stamp of the New 

 South Wales horses of about fifty years ago, but 

 also to the fact that a Persian horse . . . escaped 

 and lived for many years in the Tubbut country." 



In some of the above districts these brumbies, as 

 they are locally called, became a nuisance to the 

 settlers, by whom they were eventually exterminated, 

 and a similar extirpation of feral horses has taken 

 place, for the same reason, in other parts of the 

 world. 



