18 THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 



ing the chase. The little animal, being driven into a 

 corner, leaped completely over the man and horse, and 

 escaped. 



The sheltie or pony of the Shetland isles, is a very 

 diminutive animal, sometimes not more than thirty 

 inches high, and rarely exceeding thirty-eight. He is 

 often exceedingly beautiful, with a small head, good- 

 tempered countenance, a short neck, fine towards the 

 throttle, shoulders low and thick in so little a creature 

 far from being a blemish back short, quarters ex- 

 panded and powerful, legs flat and fine, and pretty 

 round feet. These ponies possess immense strength 

 for their size ; will fatten upon almost anything, and 

 are perfectly docile. Mr. Youatt says that one of them, 

 three feet in height, carried a man of twelve stone forty 

 miles in one day. 



Pony hunting used to be one of the favorite amuse- 

 ments of the Welsh farmers and peasantry a century 

 and a half ago, and it has not even now fallen alto- 

 gether into disuse. The following story of one of these 

 expeditions is related in the Cambrian Quarterly Ma- 

 gazine : 



"A farmer, named Hugo Garonwy, lived in the 

 neighborhood of Llewyn Georie. Although he handled 

 the small tilt plough, and other farming tools in their 

 due season, yet the catching of the merlin, the fox, 

 and the hare, were pursuits more congenial to his 

 tastes ; and the tumbles and thumps which he receiv- 



