64 PONIES — THEIR DIFFERENT BREEDS. 



nus^ a nag or pad, mannulus ; and in Greek, from hippos^ 

 hipparion ; and to all these diminutives, the primary mean- 

 ing of which is, a foal or young, and, because young, 

 small horse, the lexicographers have attached the inter- 

 pretation pony. It is, at least, doubtful whether the dimin- 

 utives mentioned ever bore that sense ; the immature 

 young of the horse and the adult pony, which, properly 

 speaking, cannot even be termed a little or small horse, 

 since it is not in its nature ever to become, or to produce 

 by generation, a large horse, but to produce and repro- 

 duce itself, like to like, as is the case with any other dis- 

 tinct species of the same family. In corroboration of which 

 view, it is well to remark, that there are several races or 

 varieties of ponies, peculiar to various parts of Europe, 

 Asia, and, more recently, of America, in all respects as 

 distinct and peculiar as any of the families of the horse, 

 such as the ISTorman, Flemish, Cleveland Bay, Suffolk 

 Punch or thorough-bred, and which will no more, when 

 bred like dam to like sire, produce a young one of any 

 other family, still less of the full-sized horse, than will any 

 of the horse families named above. The pony, therefore, 

 is by no means to be regarded as a dwarf horse — since full- 

 sized and healthy horses never produce ponies, although 

 they may produce rickety, small-sized and defective colts 

 or fillies; nor do ponies, as .above stated, ever produce 

 full sized horses, which Avould occasionally be the case, es- 

 pecially in the former instance, were they accidental mon- 

 strosities, and not a distinct race. 



In what manner the pony was originally produced, in 

 its primary form, or subsequently established in all, or anj^ 

 one, of its self-reproducing varieties, is impossible to de- 

 cide, and useless to speculate. It is evident and certain 

 that once, at a vastly remote period, they all arose from a 

 single type of each species ; but that, at periods still exceed- 



