THE HIGHLAND GARRON 473 



heavy weights and on poor keep. Colours : black, brown, 

 dun, and grey, with a few bays ; the duns and greys generally 

 show most Arab blood, in which no Arab cross can be traced 

 for generations." 



(3) The Highland Garron is a good deal bigger than the 

 others, up to 13 hands. The centre and fountainhead of 

 this breed is the Duke of Atholl's stud at Blair Atholl. The 

 breed belongs chiefly to Perthshire and the Central High- 

 lands, and is limited in numbers. The colours are black, 

 brown, dun (with or without a stripe covering the backbone, 

 bars on the fore legs, and dark points), piebald, black or 

 brown and white, bay, and a few greys. Tufts of white hair 

 appear at times on any part of the body. Dappling is quite 

 common, and dappled cream becomes white with age like 

 grey. Munro Mackenzie describes them as having "good 

 game heads, bold eyes, shoulders a bit straight and back long, 

 with the best of legs and feet, a good tuft of hair on the heels, 

 and often a very well set-on tail," and as " originally bred 

 from small ponies crossed with large horses." They are 

 short and stumpy, but strong in the pastern, with a very 

 short distance between the knee and the fetlock. They have 

 short ears, good-sized, sagacious-looking heads, with great 

 strength of jaw, and big, wide-open, clean-cut nostrils. They 

 show no trace of Arab type or origin. They run up to 15 

 hands (the mares at Atholl are 14 hands and the young 

 stallions 14 hands), and are undoubtedly the biggest and 

 most substantially built pure-bred ponies in this country 

 the majority of them strong enough to haul with ease a ton- 

 load on a macadamised road. They are unequalled hill 

 ponies for staying power at slow speed, sure-footedness, and 

 for carrying heavy loads of deer or smaller game on rough 

 hillsides and mountainous places, and bearing the sportsman 

 to the shooting ground. They possess the strength of the 

 cart-horse, with the nuggety build, steep, powerful shoulders, 

 and low withers of the best normal type of mountain pony. 

 Many are weak in the muscular development of the second 

 thigh. The grey mares (which, curiously enough, are often a 

 degree heavier than the others) produce black or dark dun- 

 brown foals, with a silver hair through the foal coat which, 

 like that of the Percheron, is replaced by a grey coat. This 

 very striking similarity, the weakness of the second thigh, 



