274 A TREATISE ON HORSE-BREEDING. 



adapted to drawing the heavy diligences or 

 post-coaches used in France before the days of 

 the railway and locomotive and has long been 

 the most popular of all draft breeds with the 

 people of France. Tradition had always attrib- 

 uted to the Percheron confessedly among 

 the most active and powerful of the heavy 

 breeds of the European continent an Oriental 

 origin; but it was riot until the researches re- 

 cently made in the compilation of pedigrees for 

 the first volume of the Percheron Stud Book 

 of France that the extent to which the blood 

 of the Orient had entered into the formation 

 of the Percheron race was fully realized. 

 What the Darley Arabian was to the English 

 thoroughbred, and the Grey Arabian Smetanxa 

 to the Orloff, the Grey Arabian Gallipoli ap- 

 pears to have been to the Percheron horse of 

 France. Diligent and persistent inquiry in the 

 family records and traditions of the best breed- 

 ers of La Perche has enabled the compiler of 

 the Percheron Stud Book of France to trace 

 definitely a large proportion of the most noted 

 Percheron horses of modern times to this Ara- 

 bian sire, that was imported about 1820. In 

 fact, this Oriental blood, wherever introduced, 

 in all nations and all climates, has been a pow- 

 erful factor in effecting improvement in the 

 equine race. 

 There is every reason to believe that this 



