THE STALLION AN) BROOD MARE. 3^ 



same dam and other males. No fact in Natural Hitstorj 

 need to be better proved; and circumstances lead us t'i. 

 believe, though we are not aware that the question has 

 occurred to naturalists, that this always occurs with thp 

 first or virgin conception ; and if so, it admonishes the 

 breeder to be especially particular in the selection of the 

 male to which is granted the high privilege of the first 

 access. Out of many cases that might be referred to, 

 the reader's memory may be here refreshed as to two that 

 are somewhat familiar. 



Twenty-six years ago, in the London Farmer's Journal 

 was recorded the case which had then lately appeared 

 in the Philosophical Transactions, on the authority of 

 Earl Moreton, stating that his lordship possessed a male 

 animal called Quagga by the Hottentots — in whose 

 mountains they abound. It closely resembles the Zebra, 

 but of a smaller size. He determined on obtaining a 

 foal by this animal, from a chestnut-coloured mare of 

 seven-eighths blood, which had never been bred from. 

 This gross prostitution — as we should call it — took place, 

 and accordingly a female hybrid progeny was produced, 

 which bore, in form and colour, decided indications of 

 mixed blood, but proved incapable of breeding — as is al- 

 most universally the case with mules ; but not quite, as the 

 writer has proved in his edition of Youatt on the Horse, 

 ^Lea & Blanchard,) on the most unquestionable testimony. 



This mare of seven-eighth Arabian blood w^as soon 

 after sold to Sir Gore Ousley, who afterward bred from 

 her, by a very fine black Arabian stallion, two colts. 

 These Lord Moreton went to see and examine, — ♦he one 

 a two-year old filly ; the other a yearling colt — both of 

 which were as strongly characterized by Arabian blood 

 as might be expected where there was fifteen-sixteenth* 

 of it present — but both in their colour and hair of their 

 manes, they showed a striking resemblance Uf the cu^gga 



