392 
A French Hams and Horse Fair. 
the little Bidet is '■ indefatigable." He runs 30 or 40 miles for 
days and days, and comes in nearly as cheery as he started. 
From 12L to 201. English is a fair price; 14 to 15 hands the 
height ; but for this little working stallion in question his appre- 
ciative owner would hardly like, at five years old, to take 201. 
Clearly, wonders with this native breed could be effected by 
judicious and pertinacious selection from within ; but as com- 
pared with other races and methods, say the production of a ton 
of flesh and fat and bone in a single skin, the general improve- 
ment by selection within the Breton family of horses would 
certainly not pay ? 
The Bidet, like his owner, must soon be improved beyond 
recognition ; all things tend to a common level ; the little Bidet, 
like the English pack-horse, has had his day. New ideas, new 
requirements, must convert the Bidet into the large active horse 
of commerce or war. The native light horses will not be im- 
proved from within by selection, but by crossing, first the Nor- 
folk Breton, and then again something larger. The half-bred 
horse will be used on the native mares of the smaller race, and 
the thoroughbred on the heavy mares ; all evolution tending 
to one level. The varieties of the horse in the Haras must un- 
doubtedly make administration exceedingly difficult : in whole- 
sale crossing with cross-bred animals the results are necessarily 
of an altogether uncertain and very iiuky nature. 
The following is an illustrative sketch from the life of an 
accidentally encountered primitive race-meeting — showing the 
Breton people, like the kindred Irish, have really, though unculti- 
vated, a natural taste for horseflesh. The scene of action was near 
Point du Raz, Finistere, a bare Moorish country. A three-mile 
course, on a flinty road, began uphill and ended in a village ; 
this course was singularly unimproved by two turns, one at right- 
angles, the other a dog-leg. The way was lined throughout 
with interested spectators. The plucky little competing horses, 
natives, greys, and chestmits, and altogether iminfluenced by 
the Haras, were bestridden without saddles by huge riders 
without shoes (sans sahot), who, whether galloping or trotting, 
extracted pertinaciously the best pace from their ever-willing 
little coursers. Allcz ! allcz!" and away they go, amidst 
clouds of dust and a shower of flints, up hill and down dale, pell 
mell into the village. Here all the horses " pull " the riders, 
and under the sun there was at least — an honest race ! 
My selections at Lamballe as noted are these : Cliarhonnier, 
black Percheron — a mixed and fixed race, much crossed, Arab, 
English, and Breton, and nearer blood than any other common 
race ; a remarkably compact horse, with a sweep of shoulder that 
