or of little reliable ascendency. In that case the filly might have lost her fitness to draught-work without gaining anything in orm. That would be then a real degeneration.

"I will now cite a contrary example. The English race-horse, deriving from the Arabian horse, is degenerated in the eyes of the physiologist, because he has not retained the primitive aspect of the race.

"But the opinion of the physiologist is as false in the hippie sense as the breeder cited above. In neither of these two cases is the horse degenerated. In the former he has gained in harmony and in race, without losing anything in aptitude; and in the second case he has gained in aptitude without losing anything in race.

"Nevertheless, it should be observed that, in cases where a modification produced in a race tends to impress upon it a retrograde movement from its type, whether that modification be restricted, or that it answers the purpose required, there is evidence of a condition of form, &c., which denote a tendency to degenerate.

66 Thus, reverting still to the examples we have chosen, we say that there is a tendency to degenerate in a race of draught-horses, which was originally well conformed, when to give greater bulk and propension to draught it is crossed with a yet coarser race, though still more appropriate to draught-labour. But it cannot be said that it is absolute degeneration, since it is the product, or the act of man's will, and had a predetermined and rational object.

"There is also a tendency to degenerate in the formation of pure Western races, and particularly in the English thorough-bred race, when to appropriate it to racing purposes it is transformed into a special race, which no longer retains the conformation of the horse of the Arabian type, from which it is descended. In that instance there is certainly no degeneration; but there is a tendency to degenerate from the primitive type."

Though the line is here very finely drawn by Professor Houel, it is nevertheless perspicuously and correctly defined; and while it clearly points to a degree of departure from the type to which it is genetically related, it refutes nevertheless the alleged degeneration of the English race-horse of the present day, in the commonly understood sense of that word. It moreover as clearly designates the English race-horse as constituting a special, though an artificial production and type, the act of the will of man, effected and perceived doubtless by degrees only for some time, but recognised by experience as appropriate to the purpose required.

The modification in form which thus tends to impress upon the English thorough-bred horse an obvious departure from its type, though a retrograde movement as it may seem, is nevertheless a conformation which adapts it better to the special purpose to which it is appropriated, than if under the circumstances resulting from that appropriation it retained, or could even retain, the conformation of its Arab type.

In this country even, where most men, from the peer to the peasant, assume to be judges of a horse, and who have now long been acquainted with this conformation in our running-horses, it is not only considered by many as ungraceful, but reproached as ugly, by those who, ignorant of the cause which of necessity operates in producing it, look upon it as a degenerate form. This opinion obtained also, for some time, on the

continent-in France, Germany, Russia, and other countries-where it was considered a mal-conformation, and an ungraceful departure from the beau ideal of a horse.

To illustrate the sense in which Professor Houel applied to the English race-horse this gain in aptitude without loss of race, more clearly to the general reader, we will adduce by way of homely example the gain in aptitude to the human frame for a special pursuit, which the muscular arms and pectoral development of the blacksmith, and the legs and thighs of the acrobat and dancer present, derived respectively from the training and constant exercise of those limbs in their mutual occupations. To the physiologist these developments of armand-leg power in the human form, acquired always in excess over the other less-trained limbs of the same individuals, present that want of harmony in the collective form and proportions of the human body, which in his eyes present a marked degeneracy from the Caucasian human type. Yet, that these are in reality but modifications of individual form in a life-time merely, i. e., not transmitted hereditarily to their progeny, should be known also to the physiologist; for, in the sense of the words of De Balzac, "the aphrodisian attribute of beauty is an under-current that re-emerges ever at intervals from the depths of the human-tide of life," in proof eternal of the ineffaceably reproductive impress which Nature has implanted in the blood of race. Emerson had, doubtless, this conviction also on his mind, when he said, "Whilst race works immortally to keep its own, it is resisted by other forces. Civilization is a re-agent, and eats away the old traits. Trades and professions carve their lines in face and form."

But to return to our more immediate subject, and as bearing upon this deviation of the English race-horse from the form of his eastern progenitors, the perspicuous remarks of Count d'Aure in his admirable work, entitled "Cours d'Equitation," † will contribute not only to elucidate this point of the discussion, but to show how little ground there is to consider it as an evidence of degeneracy.

In the chapter that treats of "horse-racing," which is very worthy of notice, and in which the prescriptions relating to the training of young horses are traced with masterly hand, is to be found a dissertation, which has for object to refute certain erroneous opinions too generally admitted in regard to the race-horse, and which leads to a neglect in

*" Arabs, Barbs, and Turks," as we have seen affirmed; but the application of the latter denomination as a race is rather a loose inferential one than a correct one in regard to the stallions which may have derived from Constantinople by gift or purchase. From the establishment of the Turks in Europe to the present day, the best horses of the Sultans, State Dignitaries, and Governors of provinces, were derived from the Emirs and Sheikhs of the Bedouin Arab tribes as presents or by purchase, or from the tributary Beys of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers (Barbs). From the days of Amurat, the founder of the janissaries, the spahis or Turkish cavalry, like their cavalry regiments in the present day, were and are Turkish only, both men and horses, by name, as derived from Turkish-European provinces. Horses and men were mostly Sclaves, Bulgarian, Polish, Hungarian, Crim, and Caucasian: but there never was a Turkish race of horses; and the Turkish cavalry was always much inferior to the Persian cavalry of the Sofis, of the purer eastern race.

+"Cours d'Equitation, par le Comte d'Aure, Ecuyer en Chef de l'Ecole de Cavalrie." Had Count d'Aure's work been solely a treatise for the use of military schools, we should have abstained from adverting to it here; but it contains many matters of interest to breeders as well as to horse-breakers, trainers, gentlemen riders, &c.

the devolopment of the training and paces of the haut manége in those which it is wished to convert to first-class saddle-horses for show and the public ride.

"People," says Count D'Aure, "pretend, and many persons are indeed convinced, that the racehorse has an exceptional construction; that his hind-quarter is exceedingly high, and his forehand very low; but they do not see that it is the result of the training, which gives to him this particular appearance, to preserve which should be the endeavour; for to try to change that disposition would be to detract from the rapidity of his paces. But let a horse be withdrawn from training, and let him be placed in the same conditions as one which has never run-that, instead of permitting him to extend his neck, it is held up and reined in; and let his hind-quarter be brought under the mass; then that horse which had appeared so ungraceful, will be seen to assume the most elegant forms of carriage, and show the most graceful, lightest, shortest, yet smartest paces; in point of fact, all that produced the elements of strength determinative of swiftness will be found to be also that which gives elevation of carriage, since the articulary angles, which, on opening, were in the best condition to ensure rapidity, are equally the most favourable conditions to produce a diminution, elevation, and brilliancy of action. In the race, the horse will appear to have the croupe high and the forehand low. In the riding-school, on the contrary, he will seem to have the forehand high and the crcupe low; while the horse which looked handsome because he was round in flesh, which was considered to have the neck more raised and the croupe lower because he had never been subjected to training exercise, whose paces and action are shorter, the only kind he can show, will remain in his honest mediocrity, if the arms of the levers are short, and will be thrown completely into the shade on a comparison. The horse which has only restricted articularly angles always moves on the same plane; if he has not the means of pushing the rapidity of his pace very far, he has neither the faculty of shortening it to its last limits. I will support what I have just said with a few practical observations. From 1818 to 1840 I mounted at first sight, and without any preparation, more than forty thorough-bred stallions, the majority of which had been victors in several races, had never entered a ridingschool, never had a bit in the mouth, and never done any work but on the turf. Those horses became almost immediately as supple and subdued in action as Spanish genets. Among those horses I will cite Snail, Eastham, Napoleon, Pickpocket, and particularly Tigris, † the most remarkable horse both for elegance and quality that I ever bestrode. He had just arrived from England. He was brought to the manége of the Du Pin breeding-stud. I mounted him. After seven or eight bounds of pure gaiety, which I did not endeavour to suppress, he calmed down, became attentive, and ended by seeming to guess my slightest desire. At the end of half-an-hour he moved at so subdued and measured a gallop, that the best-trained horse that would have followed him would have been compelled to fall into a walking pace. Eylau, foaled at the Du Pin breeding-stud (sire Napoleon), which won the Paris Race Stakes, 17th or 18th September, 1839, and brought + Winner of the 2,000 Guineas, 1815.

*Won the Chester Cup, 1833.

back to the Du Pin stud after the races, arrived there on the 28th of the same month. On the 1st October I mounted him in the manége of the stud; on the 5th he worked with the steadiness, precision, and accuracy of a horse trained for twenty years to the exercise of the haut manége. Eylau is still at the Du Pin stud, and is considered one of the best horses o the manége. I could further cite Maitre de Danse, Pikok, Liberté, Arbutus, Jean Bart, Miss Annette, and several others belonging to Lord Seymour; † but it would be to recapitulate the same results. I cite these examples solely, to prove that the same means which made those horses victors on the turf, made them also first-rate horses of the manége. If now, by way of opposition to the celebrated racehorses I have just cited, I were to speak of all those horses which, with quick, yet restricted paces, are cited as excellently adapted for the manége, I would reply they are the very horses which require most trouble to train to the work of the manége. Of whatever kind, and however light, a horse may be, if he is wanting in regular proportions, it will sometimes require a twelvemonth before he can be brought to execute a work in the manége, which would be obtained in a fortnight from a racehorse. Unfortunately, many persons judge a horse fit for the work of the manége, just as others consider one good for racing purposes whose conformation is wanting in all accord. Such a horse, which necessarily will have a hard mouth, may sometimes run away with an ignorant rider; by him he will then be considered as well adapted for racing, because he is always disposed to go faster than is required. All these erroneous ideas would disappear with a rational study of anatomy and of animal mechanism applied to the exterior of the horse."

There are few readers, we think, who will deny the logical reasoning of the above argument. Thus, the reviled "kangaroo hindquarters," as we have read them called by some of the special cognoscenti of all equine defects of conformation, is no conclusive evidence of the degeneracy of the English racehorse, by the showing of two authorities of such acknowledged repute as Professor Houel and Count D'Aure. Other testimony of note therefore must be sought, elucidative on other grounds, of the various causes of those inroads of degeneracy on all improved Western races, which are pronounced infallible.

The theories of the great naturalist, Buffon, who admitted degeneracy as constant, have found in later times writers who have attempted to refute them; and, as subversive of his doctrine of constant degeneracy, have put forward the doctrine of the improvement of races by themselves. The argument they have used for that purpose is: That it would be to admit degeneration in all animals in a state of nature, and that the best races of domestic animals have been formed by the means they advocate! But they lost sight of the fact that the animal in a wild state does not require an organisation that renders him appropriate to our wants; that the examples of animals which have been formed by the art and will of man for his various special purposes cannot at all apply to pure races, which of the equine kind are not applied to general service, but rather to the regeneration of kinds * Was, when Count D'Aure wrote the above (1854).

The late Lord Henry Seymour.

for service. Many breeders of horses, as well as writers, who have treated upon them, have committed the error of comprising horses in the same category with bullocks and sheep; but examples taken from the latter races are of no utility whatever as guides to the improvement of the equine race.

That this so-called "exceptional conformation" of the English thorough-bred race-horse is not a demonstrative feature of the degeneration that is commonly attributed to his race, requires no further elucidation than the concurrent showing of the two able and experienced authorities whom we have cited; and that it is a form, the development of which was observed, and at an early period of the infusion of the Eastern blood so soon appreciated, that endeavours were made to preserve it, may be deduced from the fact that the pedigrees of our thorough-bred race-horses, traced somewhat high up, show numerous examples of breeding from subjects very closely related by consanguinity, resorted to doubtless sometimes with the view to increase certain propensions to which the family seemed disposed. How far a too-long persistence in this practice may have conduced to those deteriorative effects which the experienced breeders Rinsep, John Sebright, Houdeville, and others have demonstrated as infallible, by facts resulting from their long experience, even with domestic animals, where a lymphatic constitution is necessary, is a moot question that presents a wider field for more serious consideration in regard of the equine race. But to that in due course we shall revert hereafter, and proceed in that order which we think will best show those, who from the high temperature of their sentiment of national pride in our longreputed running-horses are sceptical, that they are accessible to such a thing as degeneration, have not only very positive and frequent evidences of it before them every season, if they will see it, but that there is no want of authorities, ancient and modern, from whose observations unmistakable inferences are to be drawn, that our thoroughbred race is not an exception to the rule that has governed and governs all races formed by crossings, and sought to be perpetuated on the Greco-Roman system of "pairing inter se," whence in part derived the principle advocated by some modern authors, of "improving breeds through and by means of themselves"-one which is not safely admissible for any continuity to Western races of any kind.

The most experienced veterinary surgeon and hippologist of his day, who in the middle of the last century raised the veterinary art in France from a condition but little better than that in which it then was in this country, and who wrote several works on different branches of the hippic science, which are still frequently cited as very noteworthy in France and Germany, speaks of degeneration as constant, and noticeable in the most improved Western races of his time.*

"Of all animals, transplanted or not" (says Bourgelat), "the horse seems incontestably to degenerate most; whether it be that we pay

* Claude Bourgelat, of Lyons, who to his great abilities in the veterinary art united also a skill in the art of equitation, that procured for him the appointment of Chef Ecuyer to the Riding School of that city. By his means a school of farriery was also instituted, attached to that establishment, and many pupils brought up under him extended through various parts of France that branch of knowledge and of the veterinary art generally, based upon scientific principles of practice that were greatly in advance of the prevailing ignorance and customs of the time throughout Europe.