Haw they may be Utilised by Pony Breeding. 
503 
a large but good head, ragged hips, goose-rumped, and cat- 
hammed, being also what is called sickle-hocked, and in temper 
as irritable as jou like. Very probably, from her size, she had 
a cross of other blood than pure Forest in her. Another I knew, 
of about 11 hands in height, very similar in shape and temper, 
who did good work in saddle and harness for years, and, to the 
best of my belief, is still going. In fact, I may say of the New 
Forest pony what Captain Shakespeare did of the Deccanee 
tattoo : " From the time he is foaled, he is brought up on what he 
can pick up for himself round his village. This, in hot weather, 
becomes rather a precarious livelihood. His growth is thus 
stunted, and he is often found cat-hammed, and his fore-feet 
wofully turned out, and otherwise more or less debilitated, from 
the consequences of starvation. But when he has had a few 
months' good feeding, our rugged friend comes out with a little 
muscle on him ; his small blood-head, with its large eyes, 
is carried a little higher than before ; and, to his owner's great 
delight, if he is a hog-hunter and a light weight, some fine day 
he finds that the Deccanee tattoo runs into his hog in rather a 
short distance, and beats heavy riders on large horses. Twenty 
miles within the hour have been galloped by these little Dec- 
canees on two occasions, which are on record ; once by a little 
dun mare, who was only an inch or so above pony-height. 
There was a Deccanee pony in Madras, I think in 1838, 
who ran his mile and a half in about 3 minutes and 6 seconds. 
I myself, though riding 13 stone, with saddle and all the 
apparatus for shikar, have killed a hog off a small Deccanee 
Galloway single-handed, and in the evening, when hogs are 
light and run their best. In spite of the disadvantages of being 
put to work very young, they stand knocking about often till 
twenty years of age." 
This description of these little Eastern horses reminded me so 
strongly of our own Forest ponies, that I could not help quoting it. 
Let me now show that, good as are their performances, we can find 
records of English-bred ponies who have done nearly or quite as 
well. In the 'Sporting Magazine' for October 1814, there is a 
portrait of Squib, late Mouse, then the property of Lord Charles 
Kerr, painted by Cooper, and the following description: — "Squib 
(late Mouse), 11 hands 3 inches high, was bred by Mr. Grover of 
Farnham, and got by a son of Patriot out of a Forest mare ; was 
afterwards sold to Samuel Andrews, Esq., of the same place, 
in whose possession she went from the eighteenth milestone at 
Egham to the thirty-eighth milestone at Farnham, 23 miles, in 
an hour and a quarter, an hour and a half being the given time, 
for a bet of 50 to 15, which she did with the greatest ease ; bet- 
ting 100 to 10 against the performance. In a fortnight after the 
