Welsh Ponies and Cobs. 
49 
another successful son, was sold for the handsome sum of a 
thousand guineas to Australia, while Dyoll-Starlight , their sire, 
still remains in Carmarthenshire. Since Dyoll-Starlight' s 
showyard career closed, many of his prize-winning progeny 
have been successfully exhibited. 
Mr. Evan Jones’s (of Manoravon) Starlight sold for 1,000Z. 
to go to Australia. Sir Walter Gilbey’s Shooting Star, and 
Mrs. H. D. Greene’s Ballistite, constitute the old guard of the 
maturer celebrities, but Dyoll-Starlight' s descendants hold in 
intermediate stages full sway to the two-year-olds of last year. 
That he and his progeny take after the Arab in appearance 
is generally admitted, but how he inherited these traits it is 
difficult to say, as his pedigree up to the second and third 
generation gives no clue. 
The story of Marske , the sire of the famous Eclipse , foaled 
1764 in the Neiv Forest, the story of Katerfelto upon Exmoor, 
and their improving effect upon the ponies are well known, and 
often cited. Perhaps less widely known were the good effects 
obtained by the presence of Merlin , of direct descent from 
the Brierly Turk, turned down by an ancestor of Sir Watkin 
Williams Wynn on the Ruabon Hills. The so-called Merlin 
Ponies enjoyed a renowned fame. Others, too, turned down 
Arabs in Wales. Lord Oxford the Clive Arabian ; Mr. Richard 
Crawshay, the sire of Cymro Llivyd ; whilst Colonel Vaughan, 
of Rug, owned the Arab that sired the well-known Apricot. 
The late Mr. Morgan Williams (of St. Donat’s, Glam.), some 
seventy years ago, used Arab sires with his Welsh Pony mares, 
and kept them on the hills behind Aberpergwm. Mr. Meuric 
Lloyd bought Moonlight, the fleabitten unshod dam of Dyoll- 
Starlight, from the same district. To Arab blood undoubtedly, 
therefore, Dyoll-Starlight owes not only his sand-born appear- 
ance, but also his exceptional impressiveness as a sire. 
There is a general consensus of opinion amongst exhibitors 
that the standard of ponies has improved very much of late 
years. For one good pony that appeared in the shows ten years 
ago there are a dozen to-day, and this in spite of the boom in 
the export trade due in some measure to the abolition of the 
United States duty on registered ponies. There is, however, 
still plenty of work to be done. The undrilled squadrons of 
shaggy, scanty fed, illbred ponies on the Welsh hills require a 
great deal of improvement. 
To accomplish this, the inauguration of pony societies, the 
employment of the Commons Act, a careful selection of sires, 
and the extermination of all barren and bad mares, are all 
means to the desired end ; but before any real progress can be 
made the little commoner of limited rights, the small-holder 
of meagre means and barer acres, and last but not least the 
