AND THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 15 



each having doubled in 130 years; and that, as before 

 said, not by any accidental importation from abroad, or 

 fortunate cross at home, but by a course of careful, 

 systematic, and sagacious attention to the laws and prin- 

 ciples of breeding and feeding. The horse, standing at 

 the head of the list, — sharing and supporting man in all 

 his most pleasurable as well as toilsome and dangerous 

 enterprises, — naturally engaged his earliest attention and 

 most assiduous care, to cherish and improve to the high- 

 est pitch, his noble faculties of strength, speed, and 

 endurance ; and thus may have been already brought to 

 the zenith of his capabilities, if indeed he has not pass- 

 ed the culminating point ; but see what must have been 

 achieved by the stimulus of the turf, and art in the 

 breeding-stud, to raise the bred horse of England to a 

 height of perfection, even above the wonderful capacity 

 of his south-eastern ancestry, — the very " drinkers of 

 the wind" themselves ! — for we have the high authority 

 of Nimrod, the crack writer of England on all field- 

 sports, for saying that, on the best Indian authorities, 

 " the best Arab, on his own ground, has not a shadow 

 of a chance against an imported English racer, in any- 

 thing like a good form." The celebrated race on the 

 Calcutta Course, between Pyramus and Recruit^ — the 

 former the best Arab of his year ; the latter a second- 

 rate English race-horse, by Whalebone, the property of 

 che Marquis of Exeter, — settled this point, inasmuch as 

 allowance was made for the comparatively diminutive 

 size of the Arab, — it being what is termed a give-and 

 lake match, or weight for inches ; in which Recruit ear- 

 ned 10 stone 12 (152) pounds; and Pyramus only 8 

 stone 3 (115) pounds, an extra allowance of 7 pounds 

 having been given to him as an Arab. 



Pyramus, says the reporter of this race, is as gooi. 



