CHAPTER VII. 



PONIES THEIR DIFFERENT BREEDS, CHARACTERISTICS AND 



UTILITY. 



UNKNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS — ORIGIN— DIFFERENT BREEDS — SHETLAND AND 

 SCOTS — GALLOWAYS ANT) NAER AG ANSETTS— MUSTANGS AND INDIANS — 

 PROFIT OF RAISING PONEEIS. 



It is very remarkable tliat these hardy, active, and, in many 

 cases, beautiful little animals appear to have been either 

 absolutely unknown to the ancients, or so much neglected 

 and undervalued by them, as to have obtained not only no 

 special description, but not so much even as a distinctive 

 name in the principal languages of antiquity. In the He- 

 brew this may be accounted for bj^ the fact, that the soil 

 and surface of Judea were so ill adapted for the employ- 

 ment of the horse, that its use was superseded by that of 

 the ass ; which animal, with its strong, hard hoofs and in- 

 flexible pastern joints, was better suited to the rocky nature 

 of the ground and the hill fastnesses of Idumea than the 

 nobler horse. 



This reason, however, in no respect explains why the 

 Greeks and Romans, both of whom most sedulously culti- 

 vated the horse, and who, by their writings still extant on 

 the subject of equestrianism, Avere well informed on all 

 matters connected with that animal, and were good judges 

 of its points according to the received modern ideas, should 

 have no definite word, if indeed any word at all, signifying 

 a pony. In both tongues there is a diminutive of the word 

 horse; in Latin, from equus^ equuleiis ; as also, from 7?2an- 



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