8 



symmetry, dry and solid bones, large tendons, and the highest degree of 

 muscular energy, in lact, bearing the general characteristic of wild 

 animals, are bred under warm and southern skies, upou a dry soil, on 

 the hills in the desart. Ais we advance towards the uugeiiial northern 

 climes, we find tlic domestic animals void of external symmetry, coarse 

 in hide and flesh, and their bones, although of greater bulk, jwrousand 

 comparatively deficient in substance and weight. We here approach 

 the native regions of the Cart-horse, and we have just stated the na- 

 tural characteristic distinctions between him and the Courser. I'here 

 are doubtless anomalies or variations in this, as v»ell as in most other 

 cases: the high northern latitudes produce small and active animals, 

 whilst the dromedary and the elephant are bred in the arid and barren 

 deserts of the south, soils, it might be supposed, the least adai)ted to the 

 production and support of animals of such a Aast bulk. 



Either because such is the fact, or for the sake of obtaining a con- 

 venient hypothesis, we make Arabia the native or breeding country of 

 the Courser, and that part of Europe, formerly denominated the Ne- 

 therlands, or Low Countries, the aboriginal soil of the large draught 

 Horse. Without stopping to enquire, whether the tAvo species origin- 

 ally sprang up, or grew in these particular covmtries, a thing which we 

 can never ascertain, Ave will pass on to facts Avhich we really know ; 

 namely, that those two regions are not only peculiarly adapted by 

 nature, soil, and climate, each to the production of its respective indi- 

 genous species of the Horse, but that the largest and the most beau- 

 tiful and highly qualified, have been, from the earliest periods of which 

 any accounts are extant, procured fi-om thence. From Arabia has 

 issued the prototype of the best shaped, speediest and most lasting 

 Racer, and from Belgium, the draught Horse of the greatest bulk and 

 Aveight in the Avorld. 



To advert cursorily to the common hypothesis Avhich Ave have re- 

 jected, that all Horses are derived from the same single primitive spe- 

 cies, and that varieties are purely accidental, and the effects of varying 

 soil and climate; Ave must remark, that such opinion, Avhether simply 

 true or false, has given rise to the most absurd conjectures. For these, 

 the otherwise justly celebrated Bullion has distinguished himself be- 



voncl 



