Chap.II. their variation. 53 



have inhabited countries annually covered with snow, for he 

 long retains the instinct of scraping it away to get at the 

 herbage beneath. The wild tarpans in the East have this 

 instinct ; and, as I am informed by Admiral Sulivan, this is 

 likewise the case with the horses which have run wild on the 

 Falkland Islands; now this is the more remarkable as the 

 progenitors of these horses could not have followed this instinct 

 during many generations in La Plata: the wild cattle of the 

 Falklands never scrape away the snow, and perish when the 

 ground is long covered. In the northern parts of America 

 the horses, descended from those introduced by the Spanish 

 conquerors of Mexico, have the same habit, as have the native 

 bisons, but not so the cattle introduced from Europe. 20 



The horse can flourish under intense heat as well as under in- 

 tense cold, for he is known to come to the highest perfection, though 

 not attaining a large size, in Arabia and northern Africa. Much 

 humidity is apparently more injurious to the horse than heat or 

 cold. In the Falkland Islands, horses suffer much from the 

 dampness ; and this same circumstance may perhaps partly 

 account for the singular fact that to the eastward of the Bay of 

 Bengal, 21 over an enormous and humid area, in Ava, Pegu, 

 Siam, the Malayan archipelago, the Loo Choo Islands, and a 

 large part of China, no full-sized horse is found. When we 

 advance as far eastward as Japan, the horse reacquires his full 

 size. 22 



With most of our domesticated animals, some breeds are kept 

 on account of their curiosity or beauty ; but the horse is valued 

 almost solely for its utility. Hence semi-monstrous breeds are 

 not preserved ; and probably all the existing breeds have been 

 slowly formed either by the direct action of the conditions of 

 life, or through the selection of individual differences. No doubt 

 semi-monstrous breeds might have been formed: thus Mr. 

 Waterton records 23 the case of a mare which produced Sue- 

 s'' Fraiiklm's 'Narrative/ vol. i. p. the Loo Choo Islands, see Beechey's 

 « M I 5* t Rlchardson - ' Voyage/ 4th edit., vol. i. p. 499. 



t*- a \ i Moo f> ' Notic <*of the 22 j. Crawford, < History of the 



Indian Archipelago/ Singapore, 1837, Horse;' 'Journal of Royal . United 

 p. 189. A Pony from Java was sent Service Institution,' vol. iv. 

 ( Athen^um 1842, p 718) to the * 'Essays on Natural History,' 2nd 



Queen only 28 inches in height. For se ries, p 161 



