1 1 o Gleanings from the 



horfe foundered in a bog in order himfelf to 

 efcape, the animal followed its matter's footfteps 

 with a fwarm of bees hanging on its mane; and in 

 confequence of this portent Dionyfius feized upon 

 the throne. The fiercer the horfe, the deeper does 

 he plunge his nofe into water when he drinks. 

 Thefe and other (till more wonderful myths, which 

 are fcarcely to be told in the vulgar tongue, parted 

 current with the Roman encyclopaedist for natural 

 hiftory. 1 He follows Ariftotle, too, in the mar- 

 vellous ftory of the hippomanes. 



Like moft of our domeftic animals, the horfe 

 probably came into Europe from the vaft fteppes 

 of Turkeftan and the Oxus. Thence they formed 

 the Spanim flock, which was fo celebrated amongft 

 the Romans, and which Pliny commends for its 

 well-ordered paces and high action. The fame of 

 Spanim horfes, however, yet furvives ; and at the 

 official entry of the Princefs Stephanie into Vienna 

 on May 9, 1881, the day before her marriage, her 

 carriage was drawn by milk-white fteeds of the 

 pureft Spanim blood. Both the black and white 

 varieties of the flrain are fcrupuloufly kept pure in 

 the Imperial ftud ; and, with the exception perhaps 

 of the cream-coloured Hanoverians, are the only 

 pure reprefentatives of the breed in exiftence. The 

 fwifteft African horfes alfo came of Spanim blood. 

 In Poland, buffaloes and wild horfes abounded in 

 early times. Full accounts of the Scythians on the 

 fteppes of Southern Ruffia, and their nomadic mode 

 of life with horfes and flocks, are given in Hero- 

 1 Pliny, "Hift. Nat.," viii. 42. 



