( 91 ) 
V, — On the Supphj of Horses adajjted to the Requirements of 
the English Army ; with Notes on the Remount System in the 
French Army. By J. Wilkinson. 
In the history of the horse, it would be interesting to trace the 
changes which time, climate, and the control of man have effected 
in the animal's frame and constitution. To the colossal fossil 
remains which have been discovered in America, no exact date 
can be assigned ; but they are evidently those of a gigantic race 
long since extinct, which differed essentially from that now on 
the earth. If we would learn what was the prevailing type of 
the horse of the early Asiatic empires, a wonderfully faithful 
record has been preserved in the Nineveh marbles ; whilst the 
sculpture and painting of Greece and Rome will enable us to 
form as true a conception of the then existing type, making due 
allowance for the exercise of poetical imagination in those works 
of art. In the ever-varying and ever-beautiful form and cha- 
racter of the figures represented by these artists, a hai-mony 
prevails from which we may fairly conclude that the conforma- 
tion is, as a whole, true to nature. 
Some important " points " which we recognise in the Elgin 
Marbles, and the various antiquities of the Acropolis, have been 
successfully and rightly reproduced in modern works, such as 
the beautiful bas-relief of the " Passage of the Red Sea " in the 
last Great Exhibition, and are still to be traced in one or two 
extant breeds of north-western Europe ; points especially affect- 
ing the head, neck, and body, and exhibiting a configuration 
which we in England by no means seek to imitate. 
In respect of numbers, although the horses and chariots of the 
Egyptian and Asiatic monarchies were numerous, it was reserved 
for Tamerlane and Bajazet to assemble the most mighty hosts 
on record, when between them they paraded 700,000 horses! 
The requirements of modern European armies are dwarfed by 
such a comparison, and our own numbers are small even when 
compared with those of some continental nations ; but the ordi- 
nary demands of our peace establishment of 13,000 or 14,000 
horses by no means indicate the amount of strain which would 
be put on our resources in the event of war.. 
In ordinary times the proportion drafted from the service is a 
little under 13 per cent., or about 1500, a number which bears a 
very small proportion to the whole supply bred for the English 
market. Of these 13 per cent, a little over 11 per cent, are 
cast and sold, the deaths from accidents and incurable diseases 
being less than 1 per cent., and those resulting from curable 
diseases of a like amount,* 
* In the chapter of accidents, the following are noteiijorthy. A short time ago 
A man in a leading charging squadron had his lanee wrested out of hit hand, %9 
