.1 1. 



WILD HORSES. 



" He looked as though the speed of thought 

 Were in his limbs ; but he was wild, 

 Wild as the deer, and untaught, 

 With spur and bridle undented. 

 With flowing tail, and flying mane, 

 Wide nostrils never stretched by pain, 

 Mouth bloodless to the bit or rein ; 

 And feet that iron never shod, 

 And flanks unscarred by spur or rod ; 

 A thousand horse, the wild, the free, 

 Like waves that follow o'er the sea." 



It is very doubtful whether at the present day any 

 truly descendants of an original wild stock of horses 

 exist. Dr. Gray observes that the wild horse, as de- 

 picted by Gmelin, very much resembles the ponies left 

 at liberty on the commons of Cornwall, and on the 

 mountains of Scotland, and are rather domestic animals 

 which have become deteriorated. The wild horses of 

 America, although they retain their size and form and 

 have not deteriorated, are the descendants of the domestic 

 horses taken to America by the Spaniards. Horses 

 were first landed at Buenos Ayres in 1537, and that 

 colony having been for a time desserted, the horses were 

 allowed to run wild; in 1580, forty-three years after- 

 wards, they were found wild at the Straits of Magellan. 

 In the Pampos they abound, but these are not descend- 

 ants of horses that had never been subjugated to man. 



