16 FIELD AND FERN. 



from five to seven years old are preferred, but nearly 



eighty per cent, are between two and three. The 



great majority are very tractable, and the most 



vicious recusants are to be found among the Welsh. 



Some of the ponies have not seen the light for fifteen 



years; and one horse at South Hetton descended in 



^45, and has not come up since. In well-regulated 



pits they are equal to well-kept hunters in point of 



muscle and condition. They have generally green 



food for a month during the summer; and at Soutli 



Hetton and several other collieries, where Mr. 



Charles Hunting, V.S. (a well-known writer on the 



subject), is in charge, the oats, beans, and peas are 



crushed and mixed with bran, and the hay is always 



chopped. They suffer principally from indigestion, 



but not nearly to such an extent as agricultural 



horses, and scarcely ever from diseases of the lungs, 



glanders, or farcy ; and if their eyes go, it is almost 



always from accidents in the dark. The runs vary 



from two hundred to six hundred yards ; but the 



average day's work is twenty miles, half of it 



with empty tubs. One tub contains 10 cwt. of coal, 



and weighs nearly half as much again ; and therefore 



when the seam dips five or six inches to the yard, 



the wear and tear of pony power is fearful. It is a 



perilous task, and broken backs, and necks, and legs 



swell the stable mortality bills to a very large amount. 



As we have run the Shetland ponies right out of 



the islands to ground in Durham, we may go back 



and draw Unst once more for the native sheep, in 



