108 
The Animal-Lore of Shaicspeare*s Time. 
Pegasus, making him a hobbie, to make this a compleat gennet, 
which main he wears so curld, much after the women’s fashions now 
adayes; this I am sure of, howsoever it becomes them, it sets forth 
our gennet well. His legges he borrowed from the hart, with his 
swiftnesse, which make him a true courser indeed; the starres in his 
forehead hee fetcht from heaven, which will not be much mist, there 
being so many.” 
Montaigne, in his Essays , 1580, explains the origin 
of the word Destrier , a name sometimes given 
IDostrior* ^ 
to horses employed in tournaments :— 
f ‘ I am now become a grammarian; I who never learn’d any 
language but by rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction, 
or ablative, I think I have read, that the Romans had a sort of horses 
by them call’d fuyiales , or dextrarios, which were either led-horses, or 
horses laid in at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion; and 
thence it is, that we call our horses of service destriers: and our 
romances commonly use the phrase of destrer for accompagner , to 
accompany. They also call’d such as were dress’d in such sort, that 
running full speed side by side without bridle or saddle, the Roman 
gentlemen arm’d at all pieces, would shift, and throw themselves from 
the one to the other, desuitorios equos.” {Essay 37.) 
In the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., there 
are frequent mentions of the king’s horses, and especially 
of a Barbary horse, called in one place the Barra horse, 
and in another the Barbarista horse. This horse may 
have been an Arabian sent as a present from some district 
of Barbary. The high price of 7s. 2d. was paid at one 
time for a bath for him. 
The drink prepared from mare’s milk, now known as 
Icoumiss, is described by one of Purchas’s 
pilgrims as early as the year 1253. William 
de Bubruquis, a French friar of the order of Minorites, 
went a missionary journey through Tartary and China, 
and sent a detailed account of his travels to King Louis 
IX. of France. He describes at some length the prepara¬ 
tion of cosmos, or fermented mares’ milk. As many as three 
thousand mares were kept on a single estate to furnish the 
superior article called caracosmos, or black cosmos, a 
