76 ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 



district in France. Volumes have been written respecting this horse, anti 

 Various theories as to his origin and development have been advanced, by inter- 

 ested partizans at times, and again by pure lovers of horses who pursued truth 

 for truth's sake alone. 



One ^vritor insists that he is descended from what eomc call the i^rimi- 

 tive or natural horse, the pure blood Arabian, crossed with a stock of 

 heavy draft horses existing in that section, but w'ithout historic mention, 

 prior to the Crusades. He thinks that aftc^r the defeat of the Saracen 

 ^hief, Abderame, by Charles Martel, in Vouille, in which battle a host of 

 3araceiis peiished, the cavalry of the enemy, Oriental horses of marked 

 haracter, true Arabs, fell into the hands of the French, — thence many of 

 •hese horses were brought by their victorious masters to the districts of 

 Normandy and La Perche. Here commixture of blood wdth a heavier 

 horse of excellent quality followed, and the cross resulted in producing 

 the now celebrated Percheron. 



The native race referred to is thought by some to have been the old 

 war horse of the Normans — heavy, bony and slow — good for cavalry use 

 during the days of chivalry, when the carrying of a knight and his armor 

 required an animal of great strength and powers of endurance. 



Others think that it was a stock of horses then peculiar to Brittany and 

 used for draft rather than for war. 



One author asserts that the Percheron is descended from a remote cross 

 between the Andalusians (after their commixture with the Morocco Barbs) 

 and the Normans ; and this somewhat fanciful reason is given for the 

 active agency of man in l)ringing it about : that the Norman, though pow- 

 erful, was too slow for a fully caparisoned knight — ^the Andaljsian or 

 Spanish Barb Avas too light — and a cross wuis effected for the purpose 

 of securing a horse that combined speed with pow'er. 



But it is not within the scope of the present work to enter into minute 

 pai-ticulars of this kind, nor to indulge in the discussion of mooted points 

 that have a merely curious interest. 



Whatever may have been the origin of the Percheron, it is evidentl}'^ a 

 pure race, one capable of producing and reproducing itself unchanged 

 thi'ough a long succession of 3'ears, and without deterioration of qualities 

 when like sires are bred to like dams. Even wiien the Percheron stallion 

 is put to the ser\nce of inferior mares, he impresses himself in a remark- 

 able manner upon his offspring, transmitting to them his own striking 

 characteristics. Percheron mares bred to inferior stallions affect in like 

 manner, and in almost equal intensity, their progeny — though the rule is 

 that the stallion exerts the greater influence in determining the character 

 3f the foal. 



