38 FIRST PRINCIPLES. 



January, February and March is sometimes intensely severe, 

 40 F. being not uncommon and 60 F. being occasionally 

 recorded. At these times, horses can paw away the frozen 

 snow and so reach the grass underneath, but cattle have not 

 this instinct ; they merely plough with their noses, which 

 become so painfully lacerated where there is a hard crust on 

 the snow, that the poor brutes lose heart, give up the vain 

 attempt, and stand miserably awaiting death. In the winter 

 of 1886-7, 90 per cent, of the whole cattle stock perished in 

 this way." As this instinct of scraping away the snow when 

 in search of grass, is, as far as I can learn, possessed by all 

 horses ; it does not seem unreasonable to regard them as 

 animals which have been evolved ^ under conditions of severe 

 cold. 



Even groomed horses which are picketed outside at night, 

 and which are consequently deprived of the means of keeping 

 themselves more or less warm by exercise, show great tolerance 

 of cold. I have never seen the slightest harm result to Arabs 

 and well-bred Australasian army horses which were picketed 

 in the open, as the custom is, with only the protection of a rug 

 over their backs and loins, during the cold weather of Northern 

 India, where sharp frosts are not unfrequent towards the end 

 and beginning of the year. These artillery and cavalry 

 animals appeared to be in about the same working condition 

 as the stabled chargers and hacks of the officers, with the 

 exception that the greater length of their coats during the cold 

 weather lessened to a small extent their capacity for perform- 

 ing fast work. The experience gained from military cam- 

 paigns for instance, that of the Crimea, during the winter of 

 which the cold was intense proves still more strongly that 

 exposure to frost and snow will very slightly, if at all, impair 

 the efficiency of well-fed horses. It is true that the mortality 

 among the army horses of Napoleon I. during the retreat from 

 Moscow was appalling : but these unfortunate animals were in 



