THE LIMIT OF SIZE IN MODERN ANIMALS 185 



experience. Its application to the case of those which 

 are wild and free is only partial ; and its working is 

 often accompanied by variations which leave it quite 

 open to doubt whether even now the power of wild 

 animals to increase greatly in size under favourable 

 conditions is altogether lost. The great difference in 

 bulk between the small hill tiger and the ' cattle 

 eaters' of richer districts is well known. Stags in 

 an English park, such as Windsor, probably average 

 one-third more in weight for age than those of 

 the Scotch mountains, and the leopard varies from 

 a creature almost as large as a jaguar to a creature 

 scarcely bigger than a jungle-cat. A very complete 

 example of the nature of the limits set to the size 

 of animals when wild, or in conditions exactly similar 

 to those of the wild life, is seen in the case of the 

 New Forest ponies. The whole of this vast tract 

 of country not subject to inclosure has been the 

 feeding-ground of the ponies of the foresters for 

 a period of time which must have begun far earlier 

 than the date of the removal of the deer ; and 

 even in the reign of Henry III., the King himself 

 seems to have ' run them ' in the forest, as he 

 made a grant from his herd to the monks of 

 Beaulieu. In any case, the forest ponies are now 

 wild, living in herds dominated at particular seasons 

 of the year by a master stallion just as in the 



