122 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



works (which in the bibliography referred to are quoted chrono- 

 logically) amongst the nations which have produced them, with a 

 view to ascertain as nearly as may be in what proportions each has 

 contributed to the literature of the subject. The result is rather 

 curious. The earliest works are in Greek, beginning with that of 

 Kimon of Athens (b. c. 430) on the Veterinary Art, and including 

 the well-known (and, for the time they were written, really excel- 

 lent) treatises by Xenophon (b. c. 380) on Horsemanship and on 

 the duties of a Commander of cavalry (first printed at Florence in 

 folio in 1516) besides the veterinary work of Hippocrates, the 

 remarks on the Horse in Aristotle's General History of Animals, 

 and the little -known treatises of such writers as Sextus Julius 

 Africanus (a.d. 225), and Ammianus Marcellinus (a.d. 360), many 

 of them only fragments, and first made known through Latin 

 translations. No modern Greek author appears to have written 

 on the Horse, and amongst the ancients we find but seven names 

 of Greeks who have contributed to the literature of this subject. 

 Works in Latin, though rather more numerous — and some of 

 them, like those of Pliny and Aldrovandus, better known — do not 

 exceed twenty-six, of which twenty-three were printed before 1784, 

 and three only — in the shape of theses by candidates for degrees 

 at German Universities — during the present century. 



Most people, without reflection, might be disposed to assert, 

 and to back their opinion, that more books on the Horse have been 

 written in English than in any other language; but, assuming 

 Capt. Huth's * Bibliography ' to be tolerably complete, the careful 

 analysis which we have made by reference to it enables us to show 

 that this impression is erroneous, English writers on hippology 

 are, doubtless, numerous enough ; but they do not stand at the 

 head of the list. Up to the year 1886 they may be credited with 

 950 works, of which 185 were printed before 1800; 120 more 

 before 1825 ; another 180 before 1850 ; and since that date no 

 less than 464. If to these we add the thirty-four English books 

 printed in America since 1850, and one in Australia in 1864, we 

 have a total not far short of a thousand. Of these it may be 

 safely asserted that a large proportion at the present day would 

 be difficult to meet with, and if found would prove of not much 

 value. The names of those who have written for all time would 

 not make a very long list, although it should be observed that 

 many works of perhaps little intrinsic merit are sometimes of 



