132 The Arabian Horse. 



original spirit and endurance, with density of bone, and 

 much wire and soundness of constitution. 



But chief among the causes of decay would be the 

 intermixture of species, as in breeding mules : ' TJioii 

 shalt 7iot let thy cattle gender ivith a diverse kind ' (Levi- 

 ticus, 19th chapter, 19th verse). For a mare which has 

 once produced a mule cannot again produce a horse — 

 the offspring would invariably partake more or less of 

 the strange breeds. An instance is cited in ' Blaine's 

 Rural Sports.' A thorough-bred mare that had bred to 

 a quagga, subsequently breeding to a horse, the off- 

 spring took after the quagga. Experience has taught 

 me that if a mare which has produced a mule has pro- 

 duce afterwards by a horse, the stock always possesses 

 asinine properties, in form, by elongated ears, a heavy 

 head, stripes about the legs and body, contracted feet, 

 and is more or less asinine in temper and character. 

 What else but destruction to the race would be the 

 result if mares who had bred mules, and their after- 

 progeny by horses, were allowed to breed to horses .-' 

 The striped animals we even now sometimes see are 

 thus easily accounted for. 



But the Arabian horse is still a distinct breed, without 

 any sign of degeneracy or of admixture ; he is certainly 

 one by himself, nor have any been able to breed up to 

 such a state of perfection or to attain to so perfect a 

 model. I defy any one to point out any feature in the 

 Arabian horse that may have been derived from other 

 breeds, whereas you can trace Arabian blood almost in 

 every breed of horses, and detect his features in a greater 

 or less degree in every kind of horse of breeding, and 



