THE HORSES— ASSES. 



413 



thing, sometimes dashing into a wall in their insane 

 career. 



"The one real enjoyment of a Horse is running. 

 He is a traveler by nature. Horses grazing in the 

 Russian steppes run merely for the pleasure of it. 

 They will drag coaches at a gallop, and thus accom- 

 plish a day's journey, without misgivings about find- 

 ing the long way home again. On the pasturage 

 they romp and play all kinds of antics, such as run- 

 ning races and biting each other. There are some 

 which constantly annoy the others. The animal 

 which measures his strength with Man must feel 

 himself near to humanity; must, in fact, believe him- 

 self nearly, if not quite, Man's equal. 



"The stallion is a terrible animal in every way. 

 His strength is immense, his courage surpasses our 

 understanding, and hence is generally underesti- 

 mated; his eye is full of fire. The mare is much 



THE ASSES. 



The second sub-species of the Horses is formed 

 by the Asses and Zebras (Asinus). They differ from 

 the Horses proper by having only the extremity of 

 the tail covered with long hair, and by the absence 

 of the rudimentary nail at the top of the fetlocks on 

 the fore-feet. 

 Physical Charac- The Koulan of the Khirgiz or Dzig- 



teristics of the getai of the Mongols (Equus [Asinus] 

 Koulan. liemiotius) is possessed of certain 

 points of beauty which place it, in the elegance of its 

 appearance, far above the Ass. An exceedingly light 

 body, slender limbs, a wild, fleet appearance and the 

 beautiful color of its hair are its strong points. It is 

 somewhat larger than the small variety of Mules, 

 nearly equaling a small Horse in size. The head is 

 somewhat heavy, the chest large, angular in its lower 



THE SHETLAND PONY.— Although all varieties of the domestic Horse are of one species, training and environment have produced widely diver- 

 sified types. One of the extremes is the Shetland Pony, which owes its dwarfed form to centuries of breeding in the uncongenial climate of Shetland. 

 Though the smallest variety it is very strong and has great endurance. The flowing mane and tail contribute much to this animal's beauty. 



gentler, more good-natured, obliging, obedient, do- 

 cile; hence she is generally preferred to the stallion. 

 The Horse is susceptible of almost every mental 

 emotion. He loves and hates, feels the promptings 

 of envy, revenge, caprice, etc. No two Horses are 

 alike. The one is vicious, treacherous and false, the 

 other is docile and gentle. Either nature or train- 

 ing, or both, have made them what they are. 



" How different are the various periods in the life 

 of Horses; the fate of most is to be petted, pampered 

 and kept in clover when young, and to be despised 

 and neglected cart Horses fed on the coarsest hay, 

 and plentifully treated to blows when old. Many a 

 favorite steed has been mourned with sorrowful tears 

 and has justly had a marble monument erected in 

 his honor. Horses, like Men, have their infancy for 

 mischief, their youth for beauty, their maturity for 

 work, their old age in which they grow lazy and 

 weak: they bloom, mature and fade! 



part and slightly compressed. The ears are longer 

 than those of the Horse, but shorter than those of 

 common Mules. The mane is short and erect, sim- 

 ilar to that of the Ass, and the tail and hoofs also 

 resemble those of that animal. The chest and upper 

 parts of the fore-legs are narrow and far from being 

 as muscular as those of the Horse; the hinder quar- 

 ters are also thin, and the limbs are exceedingly light 

 and fine and moderately long. The prevailing color 

 of the Dziggetai is a fight yellowish brown; the nose 

 and inner faces of the limbs are of a pale yellow 

 color; the mane and the tail are blackish, and a dainty 

 brown-black stripe runs along the spine, broadening 

 on the croup and then again becoming quite nar- 

 row near the tail. The total length of the animal 

 amounts to about one hundred inches, the head oc- 

 cupying twenty inches of this, and the tail sixteen, 

 exclusive of the tuft; the height at the top of the 

 shoulders varies between fifty-two and sixty inches. 



