28 THE HORSE. 



its bosom; and when his men returned home in frail boats 

 built by themselves, they undoubtedly left their horses behind 

 them ; thus they too probably became a factor in the produc- 

 tion of these once great and mighty herds of wild horses of the 

 plains. 



In a state of nature the same uniformity that now charac- 

 terizes the buffalo, the elk, and the deer families belonged to 

 the horse. 



The ponderous English cart horse, the fleet runner, the fast 

 trotter, and the diminutive pony are all descended from the 

 same original type. Climatic influence and food have worked 

 wonders in making the vast difference at present between the 

 Shetland pony, occupying the bleak, barren, and tempestuous 

 isles — lying in the latitude of 59 and 60 degrees — north of 

 Scotland, scanty herbage, and long, cold winters have dwarfed 

 the horses of that country to the most diminutive of all ponies, 

 while from the same originals reared for centuries on the rich 

 and nutritious herbage and grains of, and in the mild climate 

 ten degrees further south on the European coast, we find the 

 immense draft horses of Flanders and Normandy. 



While climatic and other influences have done so much 

 to cause the divergence which now exists in races once uniform, 

 selections by man have also been at work, in some cases co-op- 

 erating with the influences of climate, thereby hastening the 

 transformation in some cases and counteracting it in others. 



We have an illustration of this in the horses of Canada. It 

 is quite evident that if the causes that have given us the little, 

 tough pony of the Province of Quebec were continued without 

 interruption for a succession of generations, hastened on by 

 selections of breeding stock with that object constantly in 

 view, we would, in due course of time, have created a race as 

 diminutive in size as the pony of the Shetland Isles. 



As has been said : " We find a very striking illustration of 

 divergences from a type singularly uniform in the case of the 

 domestic pigeon, of which there are nearly three hundred 



