26 THE HORSE. 



of fine properties, activity, and game of the sire, are transmitted to his get. It n ay 

 well be supposed, too, that this monopoly of sexual enjoyment is rarely allowed to 

 continue more than one or two years. As the season of love opens with the budding 

 of the leaf, in the genial warmth of spring weatlu r, this envied privilege becomes 

 again a prize for the most desperate rivalry ; the fiercest conflicts, often mortal, then 

 ensue ; and the delights of the harem are at last yielded for a time to the victor who 

 proves himself the possessor, in a superior degree, of the very qualities strength, 

 spirit, and activity which, under the best management, we should desire to impart! 

 This sufficiently accounts, as we apprehend, for such excellence in several points, ae 

 is admitted to be often found in the horse of the desert and the pampas; pre- 

 sending him from that degeqeracy, both moral and physical, which, under the system 

 breeding "in-and-in" too closely, is seen to show itself in monstrous shapes, in 

 King's evil, sometimes in idiotcy. Lord Byron, himself a nobleman, and unfortunately 

 not exempt from personal deformity, could not forbear sarcastic allusion to the effects 

 of this in-and-in system, which, prompted by reasons of state and of family aggrandize- 

 ment, is sometimes followed too far in the royal and noble families of Europe : 



" they breed in-and-in, as might be known ; 



Marrying their cousins, nay, their aunts and nieces, 

 Which always spoils the breed, if it increases." 



The natural-born children of high-born sires are often observed to be more 

 sprightly and energetic than those which spring lawfully from parents so nearly allied ; 

 it may be because they are made like the Frenchman's incomparable shoe, in a " mo- 

 ment of enthusiasm," which, in more enterprises than one, is the guarantee of a foi- 

 tunate issue. 



There has been, since long before the American Revolution? on the islands along 

 the sea-board of Maryland and Virginia, a race of very small, compact, hardy horses, 

 usually called beach-horses, which, in a sketch like this, deserve a passing notice. 

 They run wild throughout the year, and are never fed. When the snow sometimes 

 covers the ground for a few days in winter, they dig through it in search of food. 

 They are very diminutive, but many of them are of perfect symmetry and extraordinary 

 powers of action and endurance. The Hon. H. A. W. of Accomac, has been heard to 

 say that he knew one of these beach-horses, which served as pony and hack for the boys 

 of one family, for several generations; and another that could trot his 15 miles within 

 the hour, and was yet so small that a tall man might straddle him, and with his toes 

 touch the ground on each side. He spoke of another that he believes could have trotted 

 30 miles in two hours. As an instance of their innate horror of slavery, he mentions the 

 fact of a herd of them once breaking indignantly from a pen into which they had been 

 trapped, for the purpose of being marked and otherwise cruelly mutilated ; and rather 

 than submit to their pursuers, they swam off at once into the wide expanse of the ocean, 

 preferring a watery grave, to a life of ignominious celibacy and subjugation ! Why 

 might not one of these small but symmetrical stallions, on the principles which we shall 

 hereafter explain, beget superior stock, if put to large, well-formed, high-bred mares 1 

 Mr. W. is clearly of opinion, from all circumstances and appearances, that these small 

 horses, smaller even than the Canada Stallion, possessing such powers as he 

 describes, are descendants of thorough-bred stock ! Other animals in a wild state, no 

 less than the Horse, are doubtless preserved from degeneracy under the same con- 

 servative polity of nature. Thus we see the graceful stag loses in the wildernesa 

 none of his exquisite symmetry of form, delicacy and hardness of bone, and matchless 

 swiftness of foot. When Autumn is first seen to put on the " sere and yellow leaf, 1 ' 

 the Doe, having then performed her maternal office, feels the sexual passion revive in hei 

 bosom ; but its indulgence is postponed, until the rival bucks have settled again foi 

 the season, the question of physical superiority by actual, sometimes deadly combat 

 So desperate are these encounters, that Stags have not unfrequently been found dead, 

 ae related by that scientific officer, Col. Long, upon his own observation, with theii 

 antlers inextricably interlocked, presenting striking and melancholy pictures of the 

 universal passion " strong in death." A large pair of antlers thus entangled were 

 "bund, in a WPS tern wilderness, and sent to Nicholas Biddle, Esq., and may be seer 

 ver the door rf his studio at Andalusia, overgrown with ivy. The same reason- 



