260 THE BAY STOCK. 



as Harkaway and others, that evinced first-rate 

 speed. Irish horses exceed the English in leaping, 

 not by stepping over lower obstacles or springing 

 with a flight clear above a fence or lofty hedge, but 

 by jumping gracefully, like deer, upon and then 

 down a stone-wall or a bank, often considerably 

 higher than their heads. 



The Queen's Bays, and the British light cavalry 

 in general, are mounted on half-bred horses of the 

 bay stock; and excepting in consequence of the 

 mode of treatment at home, which renders them 

 delicate in the vicissitudes of a campaign, they form 

 the best chargers in the world. From half to three- 

 quarters bred are also selected roadsters or the road- 

 horse, the most difficult to meet with of any, and 

 the hackney, which is a hunter on a reduced scale, 

 or like our present Hussar horses. 



On the continent of Europe the introduction of 

 high-bred horses from an Arabian stock is now also 



o 



the practice. France and Belgium imitate the Eng- 

 lish system, with some exceptions, as a fashion : in 

 Wurtemburg and Prussia it is a government affair, 

 steadily pursued ; but none have yet produced first- 

 rate horses for the turf, or visibly ameliorated the 

 native races. In Russia, however, where Toorko- 

 man, Persian, Arab, Abassian, and Circassian horses 

 were easily procured, the progress of improvement 

 is more manifest, and even the Kirguise nomad 

 tribes now possess horses of great powers and speed, 

 no doubt the produce of a similar parentage as with 

 us, introduced from the south. If reliance can be 



