48 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



mare which in 1843 was served by a Spanish ass and 

 produced a mule. She afterwards had a colt by a horse, 

 which bore a very marked likeness to a mule — seen at 

 a distance, every one sets it down at once as a mule. 

 The ears are nine and one-half inches long, — the girth 

 not quite six feet, stands above sixteen hands high. 

 The hoofs are so long and narrow that there is a diffi- 

 culty in shoeing them, and the tail is thin and scanty. 

 He is a beast of indomitable energy and durability, and 

 highly prized by his owner. 



Numerous similar cases are on record,* and it ap- 

 pears to have been known among the Arabs for centu- 

 ries, that a mare which has first borne a mule, is ever 

 after unfit to breed pure horses ;')' and the fact seems 

 now to be perfectly well understood in all the mule- 

 breeding States of the Union. 



A pure Aberdeenshire heifer, the property of a farmer 

 in Forgue, was served with a pure Teeswater bull to 

 which she had a first cross calf. The following season 

 the same cow was served with a pure Aberdeenshire 

 bull, the produce was in appearance a cross-bred calf, 

 which at two years old had long horns ; the parents 

 were both hornless. 



* It was long ago stated by Haller, that when a mare had a foal by 

 an ass and afterwards another by a horse, the second offspring be- 

 gotten by the horse nevertheless approached in character to a mule. 



t See Abd el Kader's letter. 



