36 A COUNTRY READER. 



some horses, the power of kicking and bucking is 

 so great that they can get a saddle off their 

 backs without breaking the girths. 



Now take shying. Let us suppose a herd of 

 wild horses trotting over a plain. They come 

 across a thick mass of growing grass in which 

 lies concealed a beast of prey. Directly they 

 saw the slightest movement of the grass, their 

 experience taught them to suspect that some 

 beast of prey was on the move, and was about 

 to spring. Then the horse that could swerve 

 the quickest and furthest would have the best 

 chance of evading the spring of the beast that 

 hungered for its dinner. 



These and many more habits that we observe 

 in our domestic animals seem quite useless now, 

 but you may be sure they were of the greatest 

 use in preserving the lives of their wild ancestors 

 before they were tamed by man. 



The intense desire to live, that is present with 

 everything that does live, caused these habits to 

 be .gradually acquired or adopted by the wild 

 ancestors of the present animals ; and these habits, 

 continuing for countless years when they were in 

 the wild state, became at last so firmly rooted, 

 instinctive, as it is called that they continue in 

 the domesticated animals of to-day, of course to 

 a very much slighter extent, although their need, 

 for the purpose of preserving life, no longer exists. 



