26 THE HORSE. 



of fine proportion, activity, and game of the sire, are transmitted to his get. It may 

 well be supposed, too, that this monopoly of sexual enjoyment is rarely allowed to 

 continue more than one or two years. As the season of love opens w ith the budding 

 of the leaf, in t!ie genial warmth of spring weather, tliis envied privilege becomes 

 again a prize for the most desperate rivalry ; the lierccst conflicts, often mortal, then 

 ensue ; and the delights of the harem are at last yielded for a time to the victor who 

 proves himself the possessor, in a superior degree, of the very qualities — strength, 

 spirit, and activity — which, under the best management, we should desire to impart! 

 This sullicienily accounts, as we apprehend, for such excellence in several poiiits, as 

 is admitted to be often found in tlie horse of the desert and the pampas; pre- 

 serving him from that degeneracy, both moral and physical, which, under the system 

 of breeding *' in-unJ-in" too closely, is seen to show itself in monstrous shapes, in 

 King's evil, sometimes in idiotcy. Lord Byron, himself a nobleman, and unfortunately 

 not exempt from personal deformity, could not forbear sarcastic allusion to the effects 

 of this in-and-iii system, which, prompted by reasons of state and of family aj^grandize- 

 ment, is sometimes followed too far in the royal and noble families of Europe : 



" they breed in-and-in, as might be known ; 



Marrying their cousins, nay, their aunts and nieces, 

 Which always spoils the breed, if it increases." 



The natural-born children of high-born sires are often observed to be more 

 sprightly and energetic than those which spring lawfully from parents so nearly allied ; 

 it may be because they are made like the Frenchman's incomparable shoe, in a " mo- 

 ment of enthusiasm," which, in more enterprises than one, is the guarantee cf a for- 

 tunate issue. 



There has been, since long before the American Revolution, on the islands along 

 the sea-board of Maryland and Virginia, a race of very small, compact, hardy horses, 

 usually called beach-horses, which, in a sketch like this, deserve a passing notice. 

 They run wild throughout the year, and are never fed. Wlien the snow somotimi-s 

 covers the ground for a few days in winter, they dig ttirough it in search of food. 

 They are very diminutive, but many of them are of perfect symmetry and extraordinary 

 powers of action and endurance. The Hon. H. A. W. of Accomac, has been heard to 

 say that he knew one of these beach-horses, w Inch served as pr ny and hack ft r the boys 

 of one family, for several generations; and another that could trot his 15 milts wiliiin 

 the hour, and was yet so small that a tall man might straddle him, and with his trts 

 touch the ground on each side. He spoke of another that he bf lieves could have trotted 

 30 miles in two hours. As an instance of their innate horror cf slavery, he mentions the 

 fact of a herd of them once breaking indignantly from a pen into which tluy had boi n 

 trapped, for the purpose of being marked and otherwise cruolly inuiilateil ; and ratlicr 

 than submit to their pursuers, they swam off at once into the wide expanse oi' the ocorn. 

 preferring a watery grave, to a life of ignominious celibacy ard subjugaticn I \\ hy 

 might not one of these small but symmetrical stallions, on the piinciplos which we shall 

 hereafter explain, beget superior stock, if put to large, well-fomiod, high-bred inaros ? 

 Mr. W. is clearly of opinion, from all circumstances and appearances, that these smrll 

 horses, smaller even than the Canada 8tallirn, pc ssossiig Miob ] f wers as he 

 describes, are descendants of thorough-bred stock ! Other animals in a wild state, no 

 less than the Horse, are doubtless preserved from degeneracy under the same con- 

 servative i)olity of nature. Thus we see the graceful sta<>; loses in the v ildem ss 

 none of his exquisite syiTunetry of form, delicacy and hardness (f bone, and matchhss 

 swiftness of foot. When Autumn is first seen to put on the " s(-re and yellrw lor.f," 

 the Doe. having then jierformed her maternal offioe. feels the sox\ifll passion revive in In r 

 bosom; but its indniironce is postponed, until the rival bucks have settled ay[-aiii f(ir 

 the season, tli(> (piostion of physical s\iporioritv l>v actual, sonietlmrs deadly oMiiIiat. 

 So desperate aro theso oncounters, that S'fanrs Imve not nnfrequently boon for.nd dead, 

 as related l)y that sciontiric (^flicer, C<A. I.on<r. upon Ids own observati' n. with their 

 antlers inextricablv interlrcked, ])respnting stril;ing and melancholy |)irtures oi' the 

 universal passion "stron<5 in death." A larrro pair of antlers thus entan<rled were 

 found, in a western wilderness, and sent to Nicholas Riddle, Ksq.. and may be seen 

 over the door of his studio at Andalusia, overgrown with ivy. The same retson- 



