FALCON'S COLTS. 81 



admit that, for beauty of form and the high quality ex- 

 hibited by this filly, it was needless to look for them in 

 any other family. My asking your aid in naming these 

 colts you will think like an invitation to dinner the day 

 after the event, all of them being already known by some 

 title, yet as they have never figured in record or story, I 

 will be glad to change them, should you oblige me by 

 offering anything fitter. I call her Mavourneen. 



PBECEPTOR. A very appropriate and significant name 

 for this young beauty a type of equine harmony, as you 

 truly remarked, only found in the thoroughbred, with ten 

 generations of pure blood flowing in its veins. 



She appears as conscious of her noble ancestry as the 

 tartaned chieftain, whose pedigree runs back to the days 

 of Fingal, and who stalks over the heath of his native 

 mountain, as if all the heroic deeds of his illustrious pro- 

 genitors were within his own reach, and could be outdone 

 by the strength of his arm and valor of his heart, requir- 

 ing only another Ossian to sing him to glory. 



Should this filly's temper be in keeping with her form, 

 the name will be still more suitable, and she will then be 

 our darling. 



PUPIL. This is another colt of the Falcon's. Her four 

 white feet and blazed face induced me to call her Oriole, 

 and certainly no animal was ever more fancifully marked. 

 The old prejudice against " four white feet and a white 

 nose " has been so effectually done away with by some of 

 the most noted horses, that I am not afraid to admit my 

 fondness for it, when so beautifully penciled, as is the case 

 with this filly. When Lexington run his match against 

 the famed Sallie Waters, some would-be wit shouted to 

 take him off the track, quoting the old couplet. He took 

 off the track many a dollar which the mare's backers so 

 lavishly loaded her with at a hundred to fifty. I saw him 

 in the show-ring at the St. Louis Fair in 1859, and have 



