ITS NEAREST EXISTING RELATIONS. 81 



that country ; but about 1900 B.C. (long after the 

 introduction of the ass) it begins to appear, there, as 

 elsewhere, being first employed in drawing chariots 

 used in war and processions. It was not till a com- 

 paratively recent period that the horse was used in 

 agriculture, the ox being almost universally employed 

 in ploughing till the Middle Ages. The representa- 

 tion in the Bayeux tapestry of a horse drawing a 

 harrow is said to be the earliest indication of the 

 kind, and quite exceptional at that period. 



Horses are now diffused, by the agency of man, 

 throughout almost the whole of the inhabited parts 

 of the globe, and the great modifications they have 

 undergone, in consequence of domestication and se- 

 lective breeding, are well exemplified by comparing 

 such extremes as the Shetland pony, dwarfed by 

 uncongenial climate and scanty food, the thorough- 

 bred race-horse, and the gigantic London dray-horse. 

 The smallest specimens of the former may be not 

 more than half the height of the largest of the latter* 



* Mr. R. Brydon, writing in the Journal of the Royal Ag- 

 ricultural Society of England, 3d series, vol. i. part 1 (1890), 

 says: " Having measured many hundreds of them [Shetland 

 ponies], I am convinced that ten hands is the average height, 

 and that very few are found outside a range of from 9.2 to 

 10.2. An occasional specimen is met with as low as 8.2 when 

 full grown, but anything under nine hands is extremely rare, 

 and the largest of the pure breed rarely exceed 11 hands." On 

 the other hand, cart-horses between 17 and 18 hands in height 

 are not uncommon. 



