THE HORSE AND ITS HISTORIANS 143 



century, 204 in the succeeding quarter, and since 

 1850 no less than 580; so that, although prior to 

 1800 there were nearly twice as many English as 

 French books on the horse, during the last five- 

 and-thirty years the latter have exceeded the former 

 by 116. 



But in voluminous writing on this special subject, 

 the Germans have distanced all competitors. Less 

 active than our own countrymen before the 

 commencement of the present century, when they 

 had produced only 142 different works, they added 

 275 in the next quarter of a century, and 256 more 

 by 1850, since which date a further contribution of 

 579 has been issued, making in all, to 1886, no 

 fewer than 1252. In regard to the subject-matter 

 of these, we find more books relating to anatomy, 

 veterinary practice, and cavalry than exist in 

 England, but fewer relating to hunting, and, as 

 might be expected, to racing. Those dealing with 

 equitation are perhaps a trifle more numerous, but 

 on this subject, as well as on breaking, training, 

 and stable management, the authorship is pretty 

 equally divided. 



The Dutch literature relating to horses is not 

 very extensive, and Captain Huth's bibliography 

 does not enable us to count more than 30 works in 

 his language. Next to the French, who stand 

 third on the list after the Germans and English, the 

 greatest number of works have been written in 

 Italian and Spanish, the former numbering 167, the 

 latter 127. Not more than a dozen have been 

 found in Portuguese ; and in the Scandinavian 



