66 POiJIES — THEIK DIFFERENT BREEDS. 



size, but andeteriorated in spirit by years, nay, centiiriea; 

 of habituation to cold and scanty fare. In Spain there 

 existed from an early date in the middle ages a peculiar 

 breed of very small, high-bred horses, scarcely to be called 

 ponies, known as the Andalusian jennet, the descendants 

 of which are said still to exist in the Connemara horse, 

 peculiar to Galway in Ireland, and to have existed in the 

 Scottish Galloway, on the shores of the Solway Frith, in 

 .he south of Scotland, and probably in the ISTarragansett 

 pacer, both of which families are now unfortunately ex- 

 tinct. These Spanish ponies, or ponies of Spanish descent, 

 are referable to another and entirely different mode of pro- 

 duction, by breeding, and not by deterioration in size, or 

 dwarfing. In Asiatic and European Eussia, again, the 

 Cossack horse, which is little more than a large pony 

 with good Turkish blood, is evidently the result of modi- 

 fied dwarfing by hardship and severity of climate. It is 

 remarkable, however, of all these European and Asiatic 

 ponies, as also of the American varieties, of which we shall 

 speak hereafter, that, unlike most animals which have de- 

 generated in size, owing to severity of climate and scanty 

 fare, they have lost nothing of their spirit, and — what is 

 yet more singular — have gained rather than lost in their 

 capability to endure toil, hardship, and spare diet, in which 

 particulars the tiny Shetlander and the rugged Cossack 

 will probably surpass any other horses in existence. 



Of the Southern Asiatic races - comparatively little is 

 known ; but it is certain that in Ceylon there is a pygmy 

 race of ponies not exceeding twenty-seven inches in height. 

 A little mare was exhibited in London, in 1765, brought 

 from the East Indies, only twenty-seven inches in height, 

 well-formed, and between four and five years old. 



In Persia and among the mountains of Afghanistan, there 

 is found a useful breed of large ponies, called Yavioos, 



