336 THE PONIES OF CONNEMARA. 



Welsh Cob (" Express ") nor die grey mare's foal (by " Golddigger ") is a 

 very promising specimen. 



Before proceeding to refer to the other types of Connemajra ponies it may 

 be as well to indicate in what respects a pony may be said to differ from a 

 horse. While we have no evidence that Palaeolithic man possessed either 

 horses, sheep, or cattle, there is no doubt that their Neolithic successors were 

 accompanied in their wanderings by horses, sheep, goats, and cattle, and by 

 at least three kuids of dogs, one built on the lines of the Irish wolf-hound. 

 The horse that found its way into Europe (perhaps from Siberia) in primeval 

 times was of a considerable size — which implies that the Shetland, Iceland, 

 and other small horses have sprung from fairly large ancestors, that they 

 are dwarfed or stunted horses, and not special creations, as was once sup- 

 posed, each adapted for a definite habitat. From this it follows that a pony 

 IS nothing more or less than a small horse. Sometimes one hears it said of a 

 particular breed that it consists more of small horses than ponies, this gene- 

 rally means that were the legs longer they would rank as horses. In such 

 ponies the dwarfing has mainly affected the legs (as in Basset and some 

 other hounds), or, as in the ponies already described, the body of some fairly 

 large foreign breed has been mounted on the legs of a somewhat small in- 

 digenous breed. That the Shetland, Iceland, and some of the Norwegian 

 ponies are stunted horses is at once evident if a comparative study is made 

 of their skeletons. In the skeleton of a 38-inch Shetland pony, e.g., I found 

 that the bones of the legs were of relatively the same length as " Eclipse " 

 and " Hermit," which, like the modern thoroughbreds, were after all only 

 overgrown ponies. This is, however, not true of crosses between horses and 

 ponies, in some of which the bones of the limbs are relatively too long, while 

 in others they are relatively too short. 



In some standard works a pony is defined as a horse not exceeding 52 

 inches (13 hands), while a horse over 52, but not exceeding 56 inches (14 

 hands), is classed as a Galloway. Now-a-days, mainly owing to the influence 

 of polo, we often regard a horse measuring 58 inches at the withers as a 

 pony. Sometimes these 14.2 hands ponies are dwarf thoroughbred or cross- 

 bred horses, sometimes they are true ponies that by selection and improved 

 surroundings have not only reached, but actually surpassed the size of their 

 interglacial ancestors. If a horse measuring 58 inches, or even 56 inches, is 

 a pony, then all the unimproved domestic and semi-wild horses of the old 

 world may be said to be ponies, and all the wild horses striped and plain, 

 with the exception of the Imperial Zebra {Equiis grevyi) of Somaliland 

 might also be classed as ponies. Evidently, in dealing with ponies, it will 

 be found useful not only to note their size, but also to make out if possible 

 whether they are the stunted descendants of primeval horses, i.e., true 

 ponies, or the descendants of improved horses — of thoroughbreds, Arabs, 

 Clydesdales, etc., or half-breeds as, e.g., Montana and Argentine ponies, 

 which are often crosses between the descendants of the old Spanish horse 

 and English thoroughbreds. 



2. — The Eastern Type. 



This section includes ponies which stand in very much the same relation 

 to the desert Arab that the Andalusian section does to the Barb — an African 

 variety of the Arab breed. 



