94 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
from the gates of China to the shores of the Danube ; the central 
plateau of Asia and the region of the Steppes, belong in full sov- 
ereignty to the horse, and in America his domains embrace the 
unmeasured solitudes of prairie or pampas, from the banks of the 
Amazon to the fields of Patagonia ; yet, not satisfied with reign- 
ing over this vast extent of territory, the ambitious animal has 
recently planted his foot on the soil of Australia. The Sun no 
longer sets on the empire of the Horse. How this empire, wider 
than those of Charles the Fifth or of Djingis, wider than those of 
the English and of the Roman, is fractured, separated into a myr- 
iad of little aristocratic republics, where authority — source of end- 
less combats— devolves upon the strongest. As many chiefs as 
cantons, as under the feudal system of the middle ages there were 
as many states as manors. 
There the young stallions who aspire to power seek to render 
themselves worthy of it by brilliant actions, and usually commence 
the career of glory by killing a wolf. It is not rare in the step- 
pes of Russia to see a stallion, two years old, dart forth alone to 
meet a band of four or five wolves, kill one, cripple the others, 
and sow the terror of his name in all the country. The wild 
horse strikes with his fore feet like the stag, not with his hind feet 
as is generally supposed. He rears to his full height against the 
enemy, crushes it under his murderous hoofs, then seizes it wdth 
his formidable incisors between the two shoulders, and flings it to 
his mares, that they may amuse themselves with it, they and their 
progeny. 
The mare needs no persuavsion to rush to the fight when danger 
threatens. War is the element of the species. Saturn admires 
himself in his work. 
We cannot deny the identity of the passional dominant in the 
gentleman and the courser, when we reflect that the blooded horse 
is of all beasts the only one that possesses his genealogical tree, 
when we see the horse parading in public ceremonies, and curv- 
etting in self-homage like an Austrian chamberlain in the exercise 
of his functions. Bucephalus once caparisoned, would have no 
conversation but with Alexander. 
The Arab poet, Eldemire, also relates, that the Calif Meronan 
