Ponies. . 213 



taken every year (not thirty mares amongst them), and about two hundred for general use, of all 

 a^es, from two to twelve years. These heavy sales, continued for some years, drained the 

 Shetlands of aged ponies. Of late the dealers' purchases have fallen off. In 1867 a good 

 horse pony was worth £j ; a mare, unless a wonder, £2 less. The chief demand of mine- 

 owners is in January and February. 



" In the Durham collieries Welsh ponies outnumber the Shetland. The Scotch have 

 the lead in Northumberland, where larger ponies are required. The Scotch ponies, bred 

 chiefly in Argyllshire, Mull, and Skye, and the western part of Ross-shire, average 12 hands 

 2 inches, the Iceland 12, the Welsh 11, and the Shetland 10. 



" Some of the ponies have not seen the light for fifteen years. In well-regulated pits 

 they are kept in as good condition as hunters, with green food in summer, and a full allowance 

 of oats, beans, and peas, crushed and mi.xed with hay, chaff, and bran. They suffer most 

 from indigestion— viz., greedy feeding when hungry — scarcely ever from diseases of the lungs 

 or eyes. The average work is twenty miles a day, half with empty tubs. Accidents of broken 

 legs and backs are frequent." 



The Orkneys had once a galloway or garron, now pretty well extinct ; it would have 

 been better if they had been quite extinct, so that some better animal might have been found 

 than the half-broken, out-of-condition brutes which the " Druid " shipped at Kirkwall and 

 rode to Kensington, an expedition which no doubt shortened his industrious life. Some of 

 the best Shetlands are bred on the Balfour estate, in Orkney. 



"The Druid (a stallion) headed the Shetland pony contingent. His mares are duns, browns, 

 mealy-bay, and a piebald. Colonel Balfour, the grandfather of the present proprietor, began 

 pony-breeding at the beginning of the century. He improved the form. Where the colours 

 did not come as the natives expected, they laid the blame on the black Orcadian water- 

 kelpie, ' Sprunky,' who was, they say, the sire of the finest original or aboriginal ponies of the 

 island. Three celebrated piebald sires and a grey are mentioned by the Druid. The stock 

 are shifted from island to island as the grass suits. They require careful drafting to keep 

 them down to 9 hands" (36 inches). 



THE EXMOOR. 



Exmoors are another famous breed of ponies, on which very careful and costly experi- 

 ments, with the view of improvement, have been tried by one family for a long series of 

 years. The following account of them, written by me many years ago for the Illustrated 

 London News, has been brought down to the present day by information recently gathered 

 on Exmoor itself. The Exmoors are interesting in an historical point of view, because they 

 so clearly show how sparse feed will dwarf and good feed increase the size of horse stock. 



"Exmoor, afforested by William Rufus, continued up to 1818 to be the property of the 

 Crown. It was leased to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, who has an estate of a similar character 

 close adjoining. He used its wild pasture (at that time it was without roads) for breeding 

 ponies and summering the flocks of Exmoor sheep bred in the surrounding parishes. There 

 are no traces of any population having existed in this forest since the time of William Rufus. 

 The Romans are believed to have worked iron mines on the moor, which have recently been 

 re-opened. Exmoor consists of 20,000 acres, at an elevation varying from 1,000 to 1,500 feet 

 above the sea, of undulating table-land divided by valleys, or 'combes,' through which the 

 river Exe, which rises in one of its valleys, with its tributary the Barle, forces a devious way 

 in the form of pleasant trout streams, rattling over and among huge stones and creeping 



