The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



then a rest with a new sense of poise, and a 

 bobbing head looks round at the dam. He 

 actually tries to turn in her direction, makes 

 three wobbling steps, trips, and comes down. 

 It has been big business, his flanks are heaving 

 with the exertion, and he is quite glad to rest 

 a little. But again the spur, and he is up 

 once more, making uncertainly towards his 

 Mother. He has had many exertions. For 

 the first time in his life he experiences a sen- 

 sation of hunger. The sensation of hunger 

 and his Mother are somehow inextricably con- 

 nected together in his mind. The more 

 hungry he feels, the more he wants her. 



The mare has had affairs of her own to 

 attend to, and is resting ; but all the while 

 she has kept an attentive and sometimes even 

 a strained gaze on her foal during his tumbles. 

 But she has been in no fear for him, partly 

 on account of her confidence in your presence 

 to protect him if need were, but mainly because 

 that evolution machine of Dame Nature's has 

 implanted the hereditary instinct in her mind 

 that this gymnastic exhibition of her colt, to 

 its completion, is a necessary preliminary, 

 both to her feeding him, and to her being able 

 to take him away if danger should arise. In 

 the wild, foals are always dropped in a place 

 far removed from possible attack. The in- 

 stinct, that this performance has to be gone 

 through without interruption, is just as deeply 



201 



