592 
THE STUD. 
tries can doubt but that Irish horses have worse tempers than 
English horses .”—“ Tracing back, as we can do, the origin of the 
thorough-bred horse to a cross with the Arab, whose head is deer¬ 
like in formation, we might naturally enough expect to 'find all 
race-horses with small heads. This is, however, by no means 
always, though generally, the case. Eclipse had by no means a 
beautiful head. Dick Andrews, as good and honest a horse as 
ever ran, had a very large head. To come to recent racers, that 
most capital of sires and race-horses, Touchstone, had no deer-like 
head, though an honest-looking one. Cymba, a late winner of the 
Oaks, has a head more like collar-work than racing. Mendicant, 
another Oaks winner, has a large, I may say very large, head. 
Van Tromp has a really ugly head, added to not the handsomest 
body in the world. And that capital and truly honest horse, St. 
Lawrence, has a head shewing less breeding than I should wish in 
the head of a hunter.” 
In reference to the above observations we would beg to remark 
that, supposing there cannot be any wide misunderstanding con¬ 
cerning what amounts to a handsome head, there may be two or 
more opinions about what constitutes a good head. Our experience 
in such matters has taught us, that horses with small, and what 
persons in general call “ pretty,” heads, frequently prove, like some 
other pretty-headed things we could mention, “ not overburdened 
with sensea reason for which, to our mind, they would be re¬ 
garded as the lowest in the scale of all heads: whereas, horses 
with alleged “ big” or “ plain” heads, but which, when you come 
to examine them, rather turn out to be broad heads, heads of 
capacity, and capacious in the parts where the sense resides, fre¬ 
quently prove most honest, good-tempered, well-doing, well-serving 
creatures. 
Such is the popular character of (< The Stud.” At the same time 
we can assure our brethren, that though the work, as a book of 
guidance or instruction, may be beneath their notice, viewing it as 
a sort of professional novel, they will find amusement enough in it 
amply to repay its perusal. Harry Hieover has, true sportsman 
like, skimmed across his country after the manner of a crow, 
picking up the dainty bits in his way over the green fields, without 
caring or troubling himself to inquire how they came there, or to 
what they owe their production. When the veterinarian returns 
home at eve after his round of labours for the day, instead of 
