IDIOSYNCHACIES, 87 



the impression that they could not move. We are wholly un- 

 conscious of the nature of the instincts which appear thus to 

 paralyse the regulated motions of some colts. A state of paralysis 

 which is commonly treated as obstinacy or sulkiness, but which is 

 more apt to be exhibited by amimals the farthest removed from any 

 such tendencies, and by animals that afterwards move with the 

 utmost promptness for the most gentle indication. Wo have tried 

 our utmost to discover the cause of this unfortunate propensity, 

 but have never succeeded. All that we know about it is, that the 

 more patiently and soothingly it is treated the more completely it 

 disappears ; and that harsh treatmenc will render the horse liable 

 to similar fits all through his after life. Most unbroken horses 

 will move on when whipped, but many will not, and it is a great 

 mistake to suppose that a horse necessarily knows that he is 

 resisting your will because he does not fly from your whip. 



178. — Besides the evidence of sacred history that the horse 

 probably originated in Africa, there is abundant evidence in the 

 nature of the horse itself, that he is an animal originating in 

 some country abounding in serpents and beasts of prey, powerful 

 and agile enough to require his constant vigilance. The mad 

 terror with which he flies from a dragging tether rope, the wide 

 birth he likes to give to every log, the distance he will keep from 

 a fur rug, the frantic exhausting plunges he will make under the 

 first animal or even object that alights on his back, the extreme 

 nervousness with which he receives the slightest prick, such as 

 might be given by the sharp claw of a beast of prey, all show that 

 nature has endowed him with a watchful timidity adapted to move 

 amidst dangers which have no existence amongst us, which keeps 

 him constantly on the alert, and subjects him to many sudden 

 impulses which are very difficult for us to understand. 



179. — With such evidences of the horse's real nature 

 constantly before us, we cannot rate that man's intelligence very 

 high who tells us that the fears of the shying horse are all shams 

 adopted to unseat his rider, or to turn him over in a vehicle. 



It is quite true that constant hard work in the open air will 

 banish a great deal of nervous timidity from man, woman, or 

 horse, but that does not prove that it never existed, or that its 



