1(> HOBBIES SHELTIES FORESTERS. 



one hour, and which travelled seventy miles in the day, carrying 1 fifteen stone. 

 The convenience and uses of the small breeds of the horse, are so many and 

 various, and so obvious, that they are not likely to be neglected. 



The Hobbies of Scotland, though somewhat smaller, appear to be like those of 

 England, an ordinary and mixed race ; but the Shelties or Shetland ponies have 

 the appearance of a pure and original northern breed, indigenous to those Islands, 

 and from the excellence of their form and the considerable use which they involve 

 in so diminutive a compass, the race well merits preservation. Their figure is 

 sometimes elegant, the forehand lofty and handsome, and the head small and well 

 set on ; their feet are tough and good, and they generally stand clear upon their 

 tegs, and are not subject to interfere with their feet. Their substance is great, 

 whence their remarkable ability to carry weight, but that of the shoulder is not 

 favourably posited for action as in blood horses, whence speed, in any pace, is not 

 one of their characteristic qualities. They have, however, speed enough to enable 

 them to travel forty or fifty miles in a day, which some of them, under ten hands 

 high, have been known to perform, carrying riders of twelve stone. These ponies 

 arc particularly useful for young children to take their exercise upon, and their first 

 -on* in horsemanship, there being so short a distance to fall from their backs; 

 and t<> judge from one which the writer hereof formerly had for the use of his 

 family, they are harmless and docile, and with kind treatment, become attached to, 

 and pleased with the company and gambols of children. 



We have not heard of these ponies being bred any where out of the Islands, ex- 

 cepting by Gilbert Laing Meason, Esq. of Lindertis, Kirrie Mnir, N. B. who has 

 a fancy stud of them, probably of a dozen or more mares. As a farther attempt at 

 curiosity in breeding, he has in the present year 1819, procured a beautiful and 

 thorough shaped Arabian Galloway Stallion, which has covered several of the 

 Shetland Mares, and the produce of which, may be expected to unite strength, 

 delicacy and speed, and to form one of the most curious varieties of the horse, 

 hitherto seen in Britain. The same plan, or a recourse to the best shaped Scots 

 hobby mares, with the Arabian cross, may be the means of reviving the former 

 excellent and approved breed of Scots Galloways, many years since extinct. The 

 Galloways were supposed to be the produce of Spanish Jennets, driven ashore on 

 the coast of Scotland, in the dispersion of the Invincible Armada, and the common 

 small Scots marcs. The late Dr. Anderson, had a capital hackney of this race, which 

 he rode twenty-five years. The Irish Hobbies were formerly a race in high repute. 



Our NEW FOREST PONIES have the same traditional origin as the Scots 

 Gallo\va\s, namely from Spanish Stallions, shipwrecked on the coast of Hampshire, 

 in the reign of Elizabeth. And, as we have already stated in the account of 

 Eclipse, the famous Stallion Mar.sk contributed no small portion of his high blood, 

 towards the improvement of the New Forest Stock. The History of Old Marsk 



