36 THE HORSE. 



peculiar and distinct family of the American horse, and again 

 when treating of the theory and system of breeding in general. 



'Now, briefly, to revert to tlie subject matter whence I have 

 recently been led devious, I would remark that the attempt 

 to reproduce the Scottish Galloway, of which I have spoken as 

 a failure, was simply the stinting clever, active, pony-mares of 

 twelve and a half or thirteen hands in height, purposely select- 

 ed for their shape, legs, feet, general soundness and hardihood, 

 and easy action, to thoroughbred stallions of the best blood, 

 chosen with as much care as the dams, low in stature, but bony 

 and close-ribbed up, with the line heads and necks, the sloping 

 shoulders and thin withers of the oriental type. 



From this union was produced a stock of extremely neat, 

 highly bred and finely formed animals, with pretty action and a 

 fair turn of speed. These are the animals whicli are used as 

 boys' hunters, up to the time wlien the asj^iring Etonian or 

 Harrowite is supposed to be arrived at the supreme height of 

 his ambition, the capacity to manage a horse. 



I have myself ridden, in my younger days, two and three- 

 part bred Galloways, from an original pony stock, which, with 

 a boy's seven or eiglit stone upon their backs, were quite able 

 to hold their own and live, not perhaps quite in the first flight, 

 but in a very fair place, among hard-riding and well-mounted 

 men, through a racing run with fox-hounds, and win a brush 

 for their rider at the end. 



On these same Galloways the young ladies of the family 

 learn to ride, while the masculines of the rising generation are 

 construing Homer, cricketing, or sculling wherries on the 

 Thames ; and ultimately, as the boys, promoted into men, as- 

 cend the backs of veritable horses, the girls obtain possession of 

 the little favorites, transmitting them each to the next younger, 

 as they, too, mount up to the thoroughbred park-hack, with its 

 darling bangtail, and become, ex officio, young ladies. 



The larger and heavier of these become covert hacks and 

 roadsters for non-hunting, elderly gentlemen, clergymen and 

 country doctors ; they are usuallj'' sui-e-footcd — a quality which 

 they inherit from the pony mother, probably of Scottish or Cam- 

 brian mountain descent, — have good, round action, and a reason- 

 able turn of speed. 



