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CHAPTER XIX. 



HUNTERS. 



Next to racehorses, hunters are without doubt the 

 most valuable class of horse, and command the 

 highest prices. But as I have said elsewhere, there 

 is no distinct breed of horse in this country, either 

 altogether suitable or altogether devoted to the 

 purpose of hunting, that is to say, there are no 

 hunters whose fathers and mothers were hunters, 

 whose grandfathers and o^iandmothers were hunters, 

 and so on. This is not the case with othel* descrip- 

 tions of horses. The ancestors of our present race- 

 horses have been racehorses for a hundred and fifty 

 years or more ; our cart-horses are descendants of 

 similar cart-horses ; and our roadsters or trotting 

 horses have pedigrees going back to the beginning of 

 this century. 



How comes it then that the horse which occupies 

 the second place in the list in value, has no family 

 existence at all ? I suppose the reason is to be found 

 in the following consideration : first, that although 



K 



