54 



HOBSES. 



Chap. II. 



cessively three foals without tails ; so that a tailless race mio-ht 

 have been formed like the tailless races of dogs and cats. A 

 Eussian breed of horses is said to have frizzled hair, and 

 Azara 24 relates that in Paraguay horses are occasionally born 

 but are generally destroyed, with hair like that on the head of 

 a negro ; and this peculiarity is transmitted even to half-breeds : 

 it is a curious case of correlation that such horses have short 

 manes and tails, and their hoofs are of a peculiar shape like 

 those of a mule. 



It is scarcely possible to doubt that the long-continued selec- 

 tion of qualities serviceable to man has been the chief agent in 

 the formation of the several breeds of the horse. Look at a dray- 

 horse, and see how well adapted he is to draw heavy weights, 

 and how unlike in appearance to any allied wild animal. The 

 English race-horse is known to have proceeded from the com- 

 mingled blood of Arabs, Turks, and Barbs ; but selection and 

 training have together made him a very different animal from 

 his parent-stocks. As a writer in India, who evidently knows 

 the pure Arab w^ell, asks, who now, "looking at our present 

 breed of race-horses, could have conceived that they were the 

 result of the union of the Arab horse and African mare?" 

 The improvement is so marked that in running for the Good- 

 wood Cup " the first descendants of Arabian, Turkish, and 

 Persian horses, are allowed a discount of 18 lbs. weight ; and 

 when both parents are of these countries a discount -of 36 lbs. 25 

 It is notorious that the Arabs have long been as careful about 

 the pedigree of their horses as we are, and this implies great 

 and continued care in breeding. Seeing what has been done 

 in England by careful breeding, can we doubt that the Arabs 

 must likewise have produced during the course of centuries a 

 marked effect on the qualities of their horses ? But we may go 

 much farther back in time, for in the most ancient known 

 book, the Bible, we hear of studs carefully kept for breeding, 



24 ' Quadruples du Paraguay,' torn, 

 ii. p. 333. 



•25 p ro f. Low, ' Domesticated Ani- 

 mals,' p. 546. With respect to the writer 

 in India, see ' India Sporting Eeview,' 

 vol. ii. p. 181. As Lawrence has re- 

 marked (' The Horse,' p. 9), " perhaps 



no instance has ever occurred of a three- 

 part bred horse {i.e. a horse, one of whose 

 grandparents was of impure blood) sav- 

 ing his distance in running two miles 

 with thoroughbred racers." Some few 

 instances are on record of seven-eighths 

 racers havincr been successful. 



