468 HORSES POLO PONIES 



object that " by registering such of them as are likely to breed 

 riding ponies, and by periodically going back to this 

 fountainhead of all ponies, we may be able to regulate the 

 size of our high-class riding ponies to the desired limit, while 

 at the same time we shall infuse into their blood the hardi- 

 ness of constitution and endurance, combined with a fiery 

 yet even temper, so pre-eminently characteristic of the 

 British native breeds." 



Lord Arthur Cecil, who wrote the introductory statement 

 to the 1899 volume, says : " Personally I am of opinion that 

 the one great recommendation should be the power of the 

 animal to live and thrive in the winter time without any 

 adventitious sustenance, while there are many characteristics 

 which all these possess in common, notably the clean-cut 

 head, small ears, bright, full eye, and well-curved nostrils, 

 together with a strong predisposition to the brown colour, 

 with light tan or mealy points, which we see running through 

 them as a common attribute of them all." 



In addition to giving a preference to the best stallions 

 within each breed by castrating inferior ones, two methods of 

 improvement are suggested. One is " a free interchange of 

 stallions, of any of these breeds." 



With that method we heartily agree, if an exception be 

 made of the Highland Garron, which is unlike the others ; 

 but with the suggested introduction of Arab or English 

 Thoroughbreds into the herds of mountain ponies, where they 

 have " to live and thrive in the winter-time without any 

 adventitious sustenance," we cannot concur, because it can 

 only end in disaster and tend to the depletion, not to the 

 strengthening, of that " fountainhead of all ponies," which 

 is a product of Nature's inexorable law of the survival of 

 the fittest. If the riding pony of civilisation is, as is asserted, 

 going to gain hardiness and constitution by the introduction 

 of blood from the mountain " fountainhead," so as surely 

 will the Highland shelty lose that hardiness and constitution 

 which is essential for its very existence by the introduction 

 of such alien blood. No better animal than a properly 

 selected Thoroughbred could be found to introduce quality 

 into a breed of ponies that are independent of the climate 

 and of Nature's scanty rations ; and for certain purposes the 

 Arab may be included. The reports that Arab blood was 



