36 BEARDED HORSES 



dark hair is white at the tips, so that 

 they are really brunettes who masquerade as 

 blondes. 



Bearded Horses. The ancient horse- 

 eating artist-savages of France have left us 

 portraits of ponies strongly bearded under the 

 lower jaw. In the earliest portrait we have of 

 the Celtic pony (Ewart), Odin's eight-legged 

 Sleipnir shows the coarse bearded cut of jaw. 

 The Celtic pony types are bearded to the north- 

 ward, clean-shaven towards the southward 

 parts of their wide range. The Prejevalski, 

 who is the Tarpan of Asia, is slightly bearded. 

 So is the Kiang or wild ass of Asia. One finds 

 the beard bristles in all the northern breeds 

 of horses, not in the desert stocks to the south. 

 Why then should northern horses want to 

 grow a beard ? 



A horse has so small a stomach that his day's 

 work to get sufficient grass is seven hours. Up 

 to about fifty degrees of north latitude, he gets 

 seven hours of daylight even in mid-winter. 

 Northward of that he needs beard bristles to 

 aid him in feeling and selecting grass in the 

 darkness. Southward of that, if he is hunted 

 by wolves or tigers, he needs a few beard 

 bristles for night grazing except in cloudless 

 regions where there is always starlight. So, 



