276 THE DUN OR TAN STOCK. 



forms of horse, and in part at least they may be 

 fairly ascribed to a different cerebral organization. 

 Unlike the other types, the dun alone invariably 

 husbands its strength and resources, never wasting 

 them by untimely impetuosity or uncalculating re- 

 sistance; ever provident in securing the moment to 

 bite at food, or drink ; cautious, cunning, capable of 

 concealing itself, of abstaining from noise, of stoop- 

 ing and passing imder bars or other obstacles with a 

 crouching gait, which large horses cannot or will 

 not perform ; these, and many other peculiarities of 

 their wild educational instinct, are reflected again 

 upon all the races of the type, however diversified 

 by mixture, so long as the prevailing feature of their 

 stature remains, as all antiquity attest, and modern 

 times daily witness in domesticated ponies, and 

 above all, in the high intelligence of those which 

 have been trained for public exhibitions. 



Although varying from circumstances, the dun- 

 coloured stirps is pre-eminently attached to rocky 

 and woody locations, always in a state of nature 

 seeking shelter in cover, or security among rocks, 

 where either are accessible ; it feeds upon a greater 

 variety of plants than the others, and, contrary to 

 them, residence in the open plains is rather an 

 accessary condition than one of preference in their 

 mode of existence. 



The dun, as before stated, was exclusively used 

 by the ancient Median cavalry, and in chariots of 

 war. It is still the principal stock of the wild races 

 of Asia, and even of the Ukraine and Poland ; but 



