T. 

 HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE HORSE. 



We learn from Bible history that Asia is the home of the 

 horse, and that he was used in Egypt more than 1600 years 

 before Christ. From the earliest ages these noble animals were 

 captured and tamed by the Egyptians. Their large caravan 

 trade with the interior of Africa formed the first channel for 

 the distribution of the horse throughout the world. Xew races 

 were produced by breeding and mixing the different races from 

 time to time, until now the number of races is almost innumera- 

 ble. The horse in a domestic state is found in almost every part 

 of the globe. Of the six ascertained original species of horses, 

 only one has yet been discovered on this continent in a per- 

 fectly wild state. This species, an inhabtiant of the mountains 

 of South America, has cloven hoofs. The larger herds of the 

 Pampas are of French and Spanish origin, and entirely of the 

 Andalusian breed. They are descendants of domestic animals, 

 and can scarcely be called wild in the proper acceptation of the 

 term. The same may be said of the wild horses found on each 

 side of the Don. They are an offspring of Russian horses em- 

 ployed by Asolph in the year 1697, when for want of forage 

 they were turned loose. The beach horse is the Canadian pony 

 breed, originally from the south of France, and is the same as 

 the Indian pony. The wild horses of the plains are of the old 

 Spanish stock and the pure Andalusian. The fine bloods of 

 England and America are crosses of the Arabian and several 

 others. The wild rovers on the plains of Texas and the West 

 are descendants of these breeds. 



South of the Ararat mountains, upon which the ark rested, 

 lies a fertile country, where the horse in- a perfectly wild state 

 is found in herds, some of which are said to consist of ten thou- 



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