26 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



tects the animal from cold, while the long hair is fitted to 

 throw off the water which falls upon the body in rain or 

 snow. But in the warm season the wool, which would be 

 incommodious, falls off, to be renewed before winter, while 

 the hair always remains. The dog, too, has a coat of wool 

 which he loses in countries of great heat, but which in colder 

 countries grows so as to form along with the hair a thick 

 fur, so that in certain cold countries there have been formed 

 breeds of. dogs to produce wool for clothing. The dogs of 

 Europe conveyed to warm countries frequently lose even 

 their hair and become as naked as elephants, and in every 

 country their fur is suited to the nature of the climate. 



Similar to the effects of temperature is that of humidity, 

 the hair becoming longer and more oily in the moister coun- 

 tries. Even within the limits of our own islands, the ox of 

 the western coasts, exposed to the humid vapors of the 

 Atlantic, has longer hair than the ox of the eastern dis- 

 tricts. Even the effects of continued exposure to winds and 

 storms may modify parts of the animal form. There are 

 certain breeds of gallinaceous fowls which are destitute of 

 the rump, so called. Most of the common fowls of the Isle 

 of Arran, on the coast of Scotland, have this peculiarity. 

 This little island consists of high hills, on which scarcely a 

 bush exists to shelter the animals which inhabit it from 

 the continued gales of the Atlantic. The feathers of a long 

 tail might incommode the animals, and therefore, we may 

 suppose, they disappear; and were peacocks to be "reared 

 under similar circumstances it is probable that, in the course 

 of successive generations, they would lose the beautiful ap- 

 pendage which they bring from their native jungles. 



The effects, likewise, of altitude are to be numbered 

 among those which modify the characters of animals. In 

 general the animals of mountains are smaller and more agile 

 than those of the same species inhabiting plains. In man 

 the pulse increases in frequency as he ascends into the at- 

 mosphere, so that, while at the level of the sea the number 

 of beats is 70 in a minute, at the height of 4,000 feet the 

 number exceeds 100. The air being rarer a greater quantity 

 of it must be drawn into the lungs to afford the oxygen 



