THE BREEDS OF HORSES. 291 



Although several of them have been brought 

 into the United States chiefly into Illinois and 

 Indiana they do not appear to have grown 

 much in popular favor in competition with the 

 British and French draft breeds. 



German or Oldenburg Coach horses have also 

 been introduced to some extent within the past 

 four or five years. They possess many features 

 in common with the French and English Coach 

 breeds, and like them are largely made up of 

 crosses from the Thoroughbred, which they re- 

 semble to a greater or less degree in proportion 

 as the blood of the Thoroughbred has entered 

 into their ancestry. 



Shetland Ponies, too well known to need any 

 description in a work of this nature, take their 

 name from the Shetland Islands, where they 

 originated, doubtless through the effect of the 

 bleak climate and scanty subsistence to which 

 the original specimens of the race have been for 

 ages subjected upon these islands. They are 

 also bred in considerable numbers in the North 

 of Scotland. There are other comparatively di- 

 minutive races, as the Welsh or Exmoor ponies, 

 the Norwegian ponies, and others of Europe 

 and Asia, as mentioned in the beginning of 

 this chapter, but a more specific description of 

 each and all of them would be more interesting 

 to the student of natural history than to the 

 practical American breeder. 



