96 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892- 



Thorough-bred English horse would be a work of supererogation, so 

 I will omit it. 



Norfolk Trotter. — Here again I fear my views will meet with scant 

 approval in many quarters. The " horsey " public in India are gener- 

 ally the racing public. Apart from those interested in the turf, 

 there are but few men, even in the Army, who take an interest in the 

 question of breeding, and still fewer, whose opinions are valuable, 

 either from experience or study. Hence a sire that cannot gallop, 

 and whose pedigree holds no strain of racing blood, is to most men 

 "anathema marantha." The Norfolk Trotters have been over- 

 whelmed with a shower of abuse from all quarters. Hallen's fools (not 

 foals as I once saw it printed), three-cornered, hairy-legged devils, 

 plough horses J and conservancy cart horses, were some of the epithets 

 applied to them. Of late years, the tide has turned, the numerous 

 fairs, held annually in the Punjab and N.-W. Provinces, have given 

 the public a chance of seeing the stock of these much abused stallions 

 for themselves. Their superiority to other classes has been so 

 palpably shown at these gatherings that both civilians and soldiers 

 are confessing themselves converted. But they have still many 

 bitter opponents. The Norfolk Trotter is by no means the coarse, 

 hairy-legged animal that people have been taught to believe. A 

 good specimen is a compact, well ribbed-up horse, with great 

 girth and shank measurement, standing level on short legs, very 

 short shanks, large flat knees, well developed square hocks, and 

 is singularly free from disease of the feet and eyes. He has first 

 class action at the trot. I would employ none without five top 

 crosses, ensuring purity of pedigree. Unfortunately we cannot 

 always obtain exactly what we want. A certain number of the 

 horses that have come out to India, are not of pure pedigree, 

 are coarser than they should be, and wanting in action. But with 

 all these faults, they have done an immense amount of good, and are 

 continuing to do so. Let any one, however prejudiced, see a collec- 

 tion of branded mares of all ages, and he will be forced to confess 

 that the young mares are far superior to the old ones, and with a 

 little trouble it can be easily demonstrated that the improvement is 

 progressive, each generation being better than the last. Consult 

 the birth certificates^ and it will be found that the big roomy mares 



