16 STABLE MANUAL AND HORSE DOCTOR 



companionship of man, becomes suited to the conditions 

 under which it is called to exist. In the mountains of the 

 colder countries, it is small, hardy, short, and muscular in 

 its limbs, and covered with abundant hair. Such is the 

 little horse of Norway and other mountainous districts in 

 the North of Europe. In more southern countries of 

 abundant herbage, it becomes enlarged in form, and fitted 

 for greater exercise of physical strength, with a diminution, 

 in ordinary circumstances, of the powers of speed. When, 

 on the other hand, it passes into countries, where from the 

 heat of the climate, its natural food is burned up for part 

 of the year, it becomes of smaller bulk and suited to subsist 

 on scantier food. Thus the horses of the South of Europe 

 are of lighter form, and more easily nourished than those 

 of England and other countries where grasses are abundant, 

 and this change of character still more appears when we 

 pass into Africa or the sandy deserts of Asia. There the 

 light and agile horse of the desert shows itself to be adapted 

 to the scantier nourishment on which it must subsist. The 

 heavy horse of England and the plains of Germany could 

 no more subsist on the herbs of the sands of Tripoli than 

 on the heaths of Lapland. It would perish in such circum- 

 stances, did not Nature provide the remedy, by adapting 

 the animal to its condition. 



With these few remarks we now proceed to give a short 

 account of the British horse of the present day, leaving 

 out, however, the subject of the race-horse, which does not 

 come within the scope of these pages. 



CHAPTER I 



TEE BRITISH HORSE— PONIES— THE DRAUGHT 

 HORSE— THE COACH HORSE— THE HACKNEY 



I.— Galloway, Bxmoor, Dartmoor, Shetland, Highland, 

 and English Ponies. 



The name galloway is said to be derived from a handsome, 

 hard}^, and much-prized breed of horses, indigenous to the 

 South of Scotland, on the shores of the Solway Firth: 

 they have now, however, disappeared from the place of 



