58 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



horse good or bad, as man may esteem them. These 

 horses belong to the borderers on the forest, who have 

 rights of pasturage, or to the cottager. Until they are fit 

 for the market the New Forest horses are left to shift for 

 themselves as they best can ; and though they are some- 

 body's property, they are not property which is cherished 

 or decently protected. In summer they show that instinct 

 upon which the domestication of the horse depends, by 

 associating together in considerable herds ; and as they are 

 tolerably well fed and correspondingly frisky at this season, 

 the sight of them scampering about through the forest, 

 with a freedom and glee quite unknown among home-bred 

 horses, is exceedingly pleasing. In winter, the scantiness 

 of the pasture forces them to break up their associations, 

 and they live dispersedly, generally in the cover of trees 

 adding the withered leaves, especially the beech, to the 

 other produce of the soil ; and at this season of the year 

 they are very shaggy in their appearance, though the 

 cleanness of their limbs and the fleetness of their move- 

 ments are not a jot abated. In the humid parts of the 

 forest they often suffer severely when the winter is 

 peculiarly inclement, because the withered grass is flooded, 

 and the frost seals it up under a coating of ice ; but when 

 they can find their way to the elevated and dry moors, 

 upon which no trees will grow, they find a winter's repast 

 in the furze, with which these are covered in all situations 

 where the soil is of a quality superior to the crag-sand. 



" When these forest horses are allowed to run wild till 

 they are about seven or eight years old, their constitutions 

 are fully established, and they can undergo much and 

 severe labour, far beyond the ordinary age of artificially- 

 reared horses. It is true they are difficult to train ; but 

 when they are once trained, they are exceeding valuable 

 hardy, swift, sure-footed, and seldom, if ever, subject to 

 disease. In their manners they bear some resemblance to 

 the wild horses of South America, as described by Sir 

 Francis Head. The foresters who are employed in cap- 

 turing them sometimes attempt to take them with a noose 



