POKIES.J 



MODERN VETEEINAET PEACIICE. 



[ponies. 



Merlin, for their form and qualities. They will 

 live on any lure, and can never be tired out. 



WELSH PONT. 



The New Foresters, notwithstanding their 

 Marsk-blood, are generally ill-made, large- 

 headed, short-uecked, and ragged-hipped ; but 

 hardy, safe, and useful ; with much of their 

 ancient spirit and speed, and all their old 

 paces. The catching of these ponies is as 

 great a trial of skill, as the hunting of the wild 

 horse on the Pampas of South America, and a 

 greater one of patience. 



A large number of ponies, of little value, used 

 to be reared in Lincolnshire, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Boston ; but the breed has been ne- 

 glected, and will, probably, be suffered to die out. 



The Exmoor ponies, although generally 

 ugly enough, are hardy and useful. A well- 

 known sportsman says, that he rode one of 

 them half-a-dozen miles, and never felt such 

 power and action in so small a compass before. 

 To show his accomplishments, he was turned 

 over a gate at least eight inches higher than 

 his back ; and his owner, who rode fourteen 

 stone, travelled on him from Bristol to South 

 Molton, eighty-six miles, beating the coach 

 which ran the same road. 



There is, on Dartmoor, a race of ponies much 

 in request in that vicinity, being sui'e-footed, 

 and hardy, and admirably calculated to get 

 over the rough roads and dreary wilds of that 

 mountainous district. The Dartmoor pony is 

 larger than the Exmoor, and, if possible, uglier. 

 He exists there almost in a state of nature. 

 The late Captain Colgrave, of the prison, had 

 a great desire to possess one of them of some- 

 what superior figure to ita fellows ; and having 



several men to assist him, they separated it 

 from the herd. They drove it on to some rocks 

 by the side of a tor, an abrupt pointed hill — a 

 man following on horseback, while the captain 

 stood below watching the chase. The little 

 animal being driven into a corner, leapt com- 

 pletely over the man and horse, and escaped. 



The horses which were formerly used in 

 Devonshire, and particularly in the western 

 and southern districts, under the denomination 

 of pack-horses, are a larger variety of the 

 Exmoor or Dartmoor breed. The saddle-horses 

 of Devonshire are mostly procured from the 

 more eastern counties. 



It was, we believe, Buffon's opinion, that all 

 horses have been derived from one common 

 stock, and the difference between them in 

 point of strength, size, speed, &c., has been 

 accomplished only by food and climate. This, 

 however, has been disputed ; and the question 

 may be difiicult to answer, whether the pony 

 and large English horse were, or could be, 

 originally from a common stock. It is, how- 

 ever, not impossible that they might have had 

 one common origin ; for if we reflect on the 

 changes which the different modes of feeding 

 effect in the condition of animals, it is not so 

 improbable as it may at first appear. 



Without pausing to discuss the question 

 whether a horse will represent in size what it 

 feeds on, we adduce a circumstance which has 

 some bearing upon it, and which fell under 

 the personal observation of the gentleman to 

 whom we are indebted for it. His father had 

 a mare that brought him no less than fourteen 

 colts, and all by the same horse, and not one 

 of which, at three years old, was under seven- 

 teen hands high. She was in the fifteenth 

 foal by the same horse, when he sold her to a 

 neighbouring farmer, reserving the foal, which 

 was to be delivered in a twelvemonth. 



At her new master's, she was comparatively 

 starved, and she came back at the expiration 

 of the year, so altered as scarcely to be recog- 

 nised. The foal, four months old, was very 

 small. The little animal was put on the most 

 luxuriant diet, but it did not reach more than 

 fifteen hands high, at the expiration of the 

 third year. 



Dr. Anderson says that there was once a 

 breed of small elegant horses in Scotland, 

 similar to those of Iceland and Sweden, and 



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