596 
VEETEBRATA. 
A COSSACK TROOPER OP THE DON OK HIS MARCH TO PARIS. 
into England for the last four hundred years. And finally, since the time of James I. — that is, 
for two hundred and fifty years — the very best horses and mares that x^rahia, Persia, and Bar- 
bary could produce have been brought to England and bred with the best English stock. All 
this has been done with the advantage of unbounded wealth, and the use of the most profound 
and persevering skill, directed to the single object of bringing the horse to the highest pitch of 
perfection of which it is capable. The result of all this is to be found in the finer British breeds, 
of Avhich the Race-Horse is considered the highest type. The history of the British horse is 
therefore analogous to that of his master : both are the produce of a diversified crossing from two 
great streams of migration, one northern and one eastern, but both proceeding originally from 
the great central nursery of men and horses, and both improved by the amalgamation. 
In order to comprehend how it is that such distinct and remarkable breeds as we have men- 
tioned have proceeded from the same original stock, we need but reflect upon a few notorious 
facts. The first is, that climate and food have a powerful influence in modifying the size, form, and 
character of animals. Accordingly, we see that the horse bred for a series of ages in the mount- 
ains of Wales, or amid the rocks of the Shetland Isles, or in the chill atmosphere of Sweden and 
Norway — and thus subjected to a harsh temperature and stingy fare — dwindles into a pony. The 
same animal on the steppes of Tartary and Siberia, fed on coarse herbage, and sweeping in wild 
herds over almost illimitable plains, becomes coarse and shaggy in form and covering, but at the 
same time possessing a remarkable tenacity and vigor of life and character. A living example 
of the Tartar breed, thus modified, was made familiar to Europe by the Cossacks of the Don who, 
accompanjnng the Eussiau armies in their march which ended in the overthrow of Napoleon — 
poured like an avalanche upon Southern Europe, and finally bivouacked in wild hordes in the 
delicious gardens of Paris. We can easily see from these instances how it is that amid the ample 
pastures of Middle Europe we should, in the breeding of centuries, obtain such large and power- 
ful races as those of Hanover, Flanders, and Normandy, and also how it is that in the fine, pure, 
spiritualizing atmosphere of Arabia and Syria we should, in the course of ages, obtain the light. 
