84 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



Australian and the Mexican horses live a life 

 much more like that of their free ancestors than 

 do those in more settled countries, and hence 

 they would be likely to redevelop attributes 

 which are specially appropriate to the wild state. 

 It seems pretty clear, from the wide distribution 

 of the habit, that it is instinctive ; and therefore 

 in searching- for its origin we must look for cir- 

 cumstances in which it was of use in the horse's 

 daily life. However effective bucking may be 

 in getting rid of a human burden, it can hardly 

 be said that such a result is of sufficient benefit 

 to the equine race to have established the habit 

 in the first place. In fact, it is pretty obvious 

 that the effect would be exactly the reverse of 

 beneficial. For if the custom became so common 

 that every would-be horseman found that he was 

 always maltreated and thrown as soon as he got 

 into the saddle, equestrianism would soon go out 

 of fashion, and thus a large and prosperous sec- 

 tion of the equine community would cease to exist. 

 One reason for assigning the origin of bucking- to 

 a period long antecedent to the first experiments 

 in horsemanship is its undoubtedly instinctive 

 character. It has been remarked above that all 

 inherent instincts are of an almost boundless 



