IMPROVEMENT OF HORSES. 
157 
Any further history, however interesting it might be to the 
curious, must be omitted for more practically important branch¬ 
es of the subject. 
RANGE OF HABITAT. 
Technically considered, the habitat of an animal, is that 
portion of the world where all his faculties, physical and men¬ 
tal, may have free and perfected development. Some require 
a very hot climate and can live in no other ; others are equally 
imperative in their demands for a warm climate, and cannot 
long survive the heat of the tropics ; while a third class are 
not so rigidly restricted to any particular latitude or zone. 
The horse belongs to this last class, being found as far up as 
the Shetland Islands, on this side of the equator, and as far re¬ 
moved as Patagonia, on the other. Strictly speaking, how¬ 
ever, this habitat is confined to narrower limits, since he does 
not attain to perfection except in warm climates. We have 
just seen that Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and Tartary, w r ere his 
earlier home, and that nativity seems to have had its founda¬ 
tion in his physical constitution ; for if removed to a cold cli¬ 
mate, his whole character changes. Instead of being that 
well-developed, symmetrical and beautiful animal he was in his 
native country, he dwarfs, becomes ungainly and clumsy, and 
puts on a warm, shaggy coat, resembling wool almost as nearly 
as the soft silky hair which is natural—just as the hair of 
the hog will change to wool if he be transported to the arctics, 
or the wool of the sheep change to hair if he continue but a 
few generations in the tropics. 
These are remarkable constitutional capabilities, and beauti¬ 
fully demonstrate the wisdom of the Divine Author. Indeed, 
it is probably thus, that the great multitude of animal species 
came to be ; for the presumption is, and the researches of 
natural historians confirm the opinion, that the number of origi¬ 
nal species was even smaller than the number of what w’enow call 
genera or families—perhaps so small as to relieve the anxiety 
of those persons who find it so difficult to believe that grand- 
