582 PROFESSOR J. C. EWART 



belong to the Celtic section of the Plateau variety. Hence small horses of the Celtic 

 type, i.e. small flat-nosed horses with only two callosities, may be regarded as true ponies. 

 Small members of the Steppe and Forest varieties are best spoken of as dwarf horses. 



During the last ten years I have had under more or less constant observation ponies 

 from the Faroe Islands and Iceland, from Shetland and the Hebrides, Connemara and 

 Achill Island, Wales, Exmoor, and the New Forest, Norway and Russia, Mongolia and 

 Java, and I have seen a great many ponies in the West Indies and Mexico. Of thirty 

 ponies under 13 hands now in my possession, four have neither hind chestnuts nor 

 ergots, in nine hind chestnuts are absent, in eight one hind chestnut or one or more of 

 the ergots are wanting, four have the chief points of the Forest variety, one in its head 

 and one in its tail closely resembles Prejvalsky's horse, and two have a remote resem- 

 blance to Prejvalsky's horse. Of those without one or more callosities, four have a 

 well-marked tail-lock, and in eleven the tail-lock is fairly well developed. 



Of a hundred Shetland ponies specially examined, eight, except in their colour, had 

 the external points of the Celtic variety, twenty-five had most of the points of the 

 Forest variety, in sixty-two the points of the Forest and Celtic varieties were unequally 

 blended, two in the head, mane, and tail might have been Prejvalsky hybrids, while 

 three had a remote resemblance to the Steppe variety. 



In their affinities, Iceland ponies, apart from their colour, differ but little from 

 Shetland ponies. 



Of the other kinds of ponies mentioned, I can only speak with any certainty of 

 those in Achill Island and Connemara in the west of Ireland, and of the ponies in the 

 district of Oaxaca in the south of Mexico. In Achill Island in 1905 (notwithstanding 

 recent infusions of alien blood) Celtic characters still prevailed, but in Connemara 

 "Roman-nosed" ponies (i.e. ponies saturated with Steppe blood) and ponies of the 

 Forest type were decidedly more common than ponies presenting Celtic characters. 



When investigating the ponies of South Mexico, I was especially struck with the 

 frequent absence of hind chestnuts, and that in some cases there was a vestige of the 

 Celtic tail-lock. In Jamaica, as in Mexico, ponies without ergots or hind chestnuts 

 were frequently met with. 



As to what extent the small horses of Asia belong to the Celtic variety, I am unable 

 to offer an opinion. The skull from Sulu indicates that some of the horses of south- 

 eastern Asia are allied to the Steppe variety, but, on the other hand, the Java ponies 

 in my possession, like many Arabs, want the ergots, and have skulls of the Celtic type. 

 As far as I can learn, the Celtic variety is not represented in north-eastern Asia ; 

 nevertheless I have a photograph of a Japanese cavalry officer mounted on a pony 

 without hind chestnuts The general conclusion arrived at by studying small horses 

 is that the majority consist of a blend of the Plateau and Forest varieties — the finer the 

 head and the fewer the callosities, the larger, as a rule, the proportion of Plateau blood ; 

 the broader the face, the longer the body, the rounder the quarters, and the broader the 

 fetlock, joints, and hoofs, the larger the proportion of Forest blood. 



