120 THE HORSE AND ITS RELATIVES 



also the modern breed has a tinge of Arab blood. 

 According to the modern standard, North Welsh 

 ponies should not exceed 12^^ hands, but those of 

 South Wales are allowed to measure 13 hands. 



The ponies of the Lake District (Cumberland 

 and Westmorland) run larger, so that many of them 

 are entitled to be called Galloways. According 

 to Sir Walter Gilbey they possess no features en- 

 titling them to be regarded as a distinct breed, and 

 they do not therefore demand further notice in this 

 volume. 



Of much greater interest are the Connemara 

 ponies of the west of Ireland, which inhabit the 

 mountains of the Connemara district of Galway. 

 It has been very generally asserted that these ponies 

 were derived from horses saved from the wreck of 

 the Spanish Armada in 1588. This, however, Sir 

 Walter Gilbey ^ considers to be probably erroneous, 

 and, in his opinion, the characteristics of the Conne- 

 mara pony of the present day are due to the impor- 

 tation of Spanish, i.e. Barb, horses from England 

 during the period extending from the fourteenth to 

 the seventeenth century. Low, in his Domesti- 

 cated Animals of the British Islands, states that 

 Connemara ponies "are from 12 to 14 hands high, 

 generally of the prevailing colour of the Andalucian 

 horses, delicate in their limbs, and possessed of 

 the form of head characteristic of the Spanish 

 1 Op. cit., p. 86. 



