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Title: The Shetland Pony
Author: Douglas, Anne, Douglas, Charles L.
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
Footnote anchors have been changed from numeric to an alpha plus
numeric sequence such as: [F1] [F2], to create a point of difference
between footnotes and endnotes which are also numeric.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_
Page 43—both spellings of ‘maiseys’ and ‘klibbar’ from the writings
of Hibbert of 1820’s and ‘maysies’ and ‘clibber’ from Cowies
writings of 1874 have been retained.
Other changes made are noted at the end of the book.
[Illustration: CHANGING QUARTERS.]
The Shetland Pony
BY
CHARLES AND ANNE DOUGLAS
With an Appendix on
The Making of the Shetland Pony
BY J. COSSAR EWART
_GRAVURO AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS_
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1913
_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_
PREFACE.
This account of the Shetland Pony is intended to give, in brief
outline, the chief facts of the history, and some idea of the present
character, position, and use of the breed. The time seems opportune for
placing on record some recent phases of its development which might
otherwise be forgotten.
We are much indebted for information and help to the Ladies Estella and
Dorothea Hope, to Mrs Wentworth Hope Johnstone, to Mr Robert Alexander,
R.S.A., to Mr Robert Brydon, to Mr R. W. R. Mackenzie, and to Mr W.
Mungall.
The illustration of Norwegian rock-drawings is reproduced from Du
Chaillu’s ‘The Viking Age,’ by kind permission of Messrs John Murray
& Son.
We are especially grateful that we are allowed to include, as an
Appendix to the volume, Mr Cossar Ewart’s very interesting discussion
of “The Making of the Shetland Pony.”
C. D.
A. D.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE EARLY HISTORY 1
II. THE PONY IN SHETLAND 24
THE FETLAR PONY 46
III. THE MODERN PONY 48
IV. THE MANAGEMENT OF SHETLAND PONY HERDS 79
V. THE PONY AT WORK 100
APPENDIX—
THE MAKING OF THE SHETLAND PONY 113
NOTES 173
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CHANGING QUARTERS _Frontispiece_
A SCANDINAVIAN ROCK-DRAWING _Facing page_ 4
THE HORSE ON THE BRESSAY STONE ” 12
BY THE VOE ” 26
GOING SOUTH ” 30
COMING FROM MARKET ” 38
CARRYING PEAT ” 44
JACK (16) ” 50
ODIN (32) ” 54
MULTUM IN PARVO (28) ” 58
THOR (83) ” 60
PRINCE OF THULE (36) ” 64
SAPPHIRE (1276) ” 68
BOADICEA (998) ” 72
STELLA (1692) ” 76
FOALS IN SUMMER ” 90
A TEAM OF MARES ” 100
A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK ” 104
_By permission of the Proprietors of ‘Punch.’_
ON DUTY ” 108
ILLUSTRATION PLATES IN APPENDIX.
PLATE I. _At end_
Fig. 1. A 41-inch Java Pony.
Fig. 2. A Norwegian Udganger Pony.
Fig. 3. A 42-inch Pony of the Udganger type from Iceland.
PLATE II. ”
Fig. 4. Skeleton of Highland Chieftain, a 33-inch Shetland
Pony.
Fig. 5. Skeleton of Persimmon, a 66-inch Thoroughbred.
PLATE III. ”
Fig. 6. Skull of Eric, a 36·5-inch Shetland Pony.
Fig. 7. Skull of a new-born foal, Celtic type.
Fig. 8. Skull of a wild Prjevalsky horse, from Mongolia.
PLATE IV. ”
Fig. 9_a_. Cannon-bone, Eric.
Fig. 9_b_. Cannon-bone, _Protohippus_.
Fig. 9_c_. Cannon-bone, _Hypohippus_.
Fig. 10. Fore and hind foot, _Eohippus_.
Fig. 11. Fore and hind foot, _Orohippus_.
Fig. 11_a_. Forefoot, _Neohipparion_.
Fig. 11_b_. Engraving of a small-headed horse.
PLATE V. ”
Fig. 12. _Eohippus_, 12 inches.
Fig. 13. _Orohippus_, 16 inches.
Fig. 14. _Mesohippus_, 24 inches.
Fig. 15. _Hypohippus_, 40 inches.
Fig. 16. _Merychippus_, 36 inches.
Fig. 17. Shetland, 33 inches.
PLATE VI. ”
Fig. 18. Skeleton of fore-foot of _Mesohippus_.
Fig. 19. Forefoot of _Merychippus_ (or _Protohippus_).
Fig. 20. Forefoot of _Hypohippus_, the Miocene “forest” horse.
Fig. 21. Upper molar, _E. stenonis_.
Fig. 22. Upper molar, _E. fossilis_.
Fig. 23. Premolar and molars of a small mediæval? horse from
Aberdour, Aberdeenshire.
Fig. 24. Premolar and molars of a small horse from the Roman
Fort, Newstead.
The Shetland Pony.
CHAPTER I.
The Early History.
A breed of small horses appears to have been the first Scottish
domestic animal to attract that attention which British livestock now
commands so generally. Dion Cassius, as translated by Holinshed, says
of the “Calidons,” in the second century of our era, that “they fight
in wagons, and have little light and swift horses, which are also very
swiftie, and stand at their feet with like stedfastness;”[1] and “St
Austin” is said by Hamilton Smith to describe how “Mannii or poneys
brought from Britain were chiefly in use among strolling performers, to
exhibit in feats of their craft.”[2] This race of small horses survives
in the Shetland pony.
It has long been regarded as practically certain that the Shetland
Islands possessed a native pony before the Scandinavian invasion
and settlement of the ninth and subsequent centuries. Hitherto
this view has been supported only by the fact that the Bressay
Stone—an accredited relic of the period of Celtic Christianity in
Shetland—displays a representation of a pony or small horse. Now,
however, we are able to rely on a much more definite and conclusive
piece of evidence, bones having been found, in the summer of 1911,
buried in the kitchen midden of the Pictish _broch_ or village at
Sumburgh, which are identified (by Professor Cossar Ewart) as part of
the skeleton of a pony not more than twelve hands high, and as being of
ancient date. This fresh evidence places beyond dispute the fact that
the pony was a native of Shetland in very early times.
We also know from rock-drawings, which are so ancient that their origin
is lost in antiquity, that horses or ponies were found in Norway at
a time lying beyond the beginning of history; and coming nearer to
our time, we have clear and definite records showing that in the
sixteenth century breeds of small ponies were regarded as belonging
characteristically to Norway and Sweden. Olaus Magnus records that:
“There are many Herds of small Horses but they are very strong; for
by their strength and agility they exceed many greater bodied Horses;
and Forraign and Domestic Chapmen buy them for their pleasure, and
transport them into remote lands, to be sold as Wonders of Nature. For
they are most ingenious, that they can be taught by them to dance and
jump at the sound of the Drum or Trumpet; and it is their Exercise by
such shews to get gain. Moreover, they are taught to leap through
hoops of Iron or Lead, not very large, as Dogs do, and they will turn
themselves about with wonderful swiftness.
“Also being called by their proper names, they do it, more or less, as
they are commanded.
“These horses feed, when there is necessity, with nothing but broiled
Fish and Fir-tree wood; and they will drink ale and Wine till they be
drunk.”[3]
And again: “The Norway horses are small of stature but wonderful strong
and swift to pass over mountains and stony ways; but those of _Sweden_
and _Gothland_ will travel incessantly, and very swiftly with more
meat, over Lakes and high Hills and deep Thickets. But those of Oeland,
because they are small, are more for sight than service, though amongst
them there are found of a different kind that are notable for labour.
“Also the Finland horses are of good qualities.”[4]
[Illustration: A SCANDINAVIAN ROCK-DRAWING.]
The Scandinavian horses were not all alike in merit, for Gervase
Markham says:
“Next, then, I place the Sweathland horse who is a horse of little
stature, lesser good shape, but least vertue; they are for the most
part pied, with white legges and wall eyes; they want strength for the
warres, and courage for journeying; so that I conclude they are better
to look upon than imploy.”[5]
These records, combined with the strong family resemblance between
Norwegian ponies and certain types of Shetland pony, lead us to
conjecture that there is either some extent of common ancestry in
those two breeds or some cross, near or remote, of one with the other.
It is probable that the Scandinavian invaders, whose literature and
mythology[6] as well as their place-names display a deep interest in
horses, may have brought horses with them to Orkney and Shetland. With
this common element, however, we also find a real difference.
While some Shetland ponies of the present-day closely resemble
the Norwegian, there are others which belong to a wholly different
type—ponies whose characteristics can only be described by the general
term of “Oriental,” long-shouldered, fine-boned, small in head, and
with an unmistakable Arab outlook. Such a type as this does not occur
in the Scandinavian breeds; and its existence proves clearly the
presence in the Shetland pony of some ancestral element not found in
the Scandinavian horse. This is all the more clearly shown by the
fact that the Shetland ponies of this Oriental type do not form pure
continuous or separate strains within the breed, but crop out here and
there, sometimes the parents, and sometimes the progeny, of ponies
apparently purely Scandinavian. They are evidently reversions to an
ancestral type which has deeply influenced the breed as a whole and
remains an ineradicable element in it. No facts are yet available to
show whether these Shetland ponies of Oriental character could be so
interbred as to produce a race breeding true to this type. The attempt
has never been made; since the general tendency of recent breeders has
been rather to neglect and eliminate this kind of pony.
The existence of this strain in the Shetland pony is undeniable,
however we may account for it; but, in attempting to explain it, we are
almost entirely in the realm of conjecture. Two possible sources of an
actual Oriental cross offer themselves for consideration.
In the year 1150 Jarl Rögnvald of Orkney and Shetland, while visiting
Norway, became imbued with the idea of leading a Crusade to the Holy
Land; and two years later he set out from Orkney for Jerusalem, arrived
there after many adventures, returned by way of Constantinople to
Apulia, and travelled thence on horseback to Denmark.[7]
The Orkneyinga Saga records the journey: “From there they sailed west
to Púll (Apulia). Earl Rögnvald, Erling, Bishop William, and most
others of their noblest men left their ships there, procured horses and
rode to Rómaborg (Rome), and then from Róm until they came to Denmark.
From there they went to Norway where the people were glad to see them.
This journey became very famous, and all those who had made it were
considered greater men than before.”[8]
It remains a matter of wholly uninformed conjecture whether these
war-worn travellers were so bound in affection and admiration to the
equine companions of their journeys and adventures that, instead of
leaving them in Denmark, they brought them home to Orkney and Shetland,
just as in our day British soldiers brought back to our shores the
Basuto ponies that had won their hearts on the African veldt. It is a
question to which there is no answer.
We come scarcely nearer to anything that can be accounted as proof when
we bring the Shetland pony within the orbit of the vivid and entrancing
drama of the Spanish Armada.
Legend has always borne that the Armada, steering its stricken course
round the North of Scotland and through the Irish Sea, left horses
scattered along the coasts in Shetland, Lewis, Mull, Galloway,
and on the Irish shores. The records taken at close quarters come
tantalisingly near to evidence; but they never quite reach that level,
so far as Shetland is concerned.
It is beyond doubt that a Spanish ship, the _Gran Grifon, Capitana_
(flagship), was wrecked on the Fair Isle, and that this was the
flagship of the Armada de Urcas, commanded by Gomez de Medina.[9] But
“John de la Conido of Lekit in Biskey marriner,” under examination,
“saith after the English Fleet parted from them, the Spanish Fleet cast
out all the horses and mules into the sea to save their water, which
were carried in certain hulks provided for the purpose.”[10] These
hulks (urcas), therefore, contained the horses of the Armada; and the
fact that their flagship was wrecked on the Fair Isle seems to bring
the Spanish horses to the very coast of Shetland.
Whether they landed on that coast or not we may guess almost as we
please. But if they did attain it, what kind of horses were they?
The Spanish war-horse of that time, as we find it in the pictures of
Velasquez, is much more Belgian than Arab, and by no means a likely
source of Oriental type or of any good pony strain. On the other hand,
there is considerable weight of legendary evidence in support of the
view that horses carried by the Armada made an improvement in British
breeds. “The fame of Newmarket,” says Sheardown, “begins soon after
the destruction of the Spanish Armada. Some horses which had escaped
from the wrecked vessels are said to have been exhibited at that
place and to have astonished those who beheld their extraordinary
swiftness.”[11]
This record suggests that Spanish horses were the source of a distinct
improvement in the races with which they were crossed, and especially
in the matter of speed; and it is hardly possible to think that this
should have been the case unless they were themselves of Eastern
breeding.
Apart from these possible sources of an actual Oriental cross in
the Shetland pony, there remains the possibility that the original
pony of Celtic Shetland was itself similar in type and origin to the
Oriental horse, and was, in fact, derived from the same stock which,
in other conditions, has given rise to the Arab and the thoroughbred.
The investigations of Professor Cossar Ewart[12] and Mr Ridgeway[13]
point to the strong probability of a triple origin of the horse as it
is known to history; and the fact that the Shetland pony, as we have
it to-day, is sometimes of a purely Scandinavian type, sometimes of an
Oriental type, may perhaps be explained by regarding it as a composite
of two distinct races, one having a common origin with the Oriental
horse, and the other being identical with the Scandinavian pony.
Force is lent to this explanation by the fact that the pony depicted
on the pre-Scandinavian Bressay Stone is wholly different in type and
character from those represented in Scandinavian rock-drawings, and
much more resembles the Oriental horse, with a high carriage and fine
type of head, and a short back.
Whatever its earlier history may be, the Shetland pony begins to emerge
in definite records during the sixteenth century. Ubaldini wrote in
1568—“Their horses are very small and tiny in stature, not bigger than
asses, nevertheless they are very strong in endurance.”[14] In the same
year Jo. Ben. (John the Benedictine?) speaks of “alia Insula inculta
nomine Auskerrie [presumably either the Orkney Island of Auskerrie or
the Shetland Island Osse Skerry] ubi equi ferocissimi sunt.”[15] These
“very wild” horses of the Auskerrie are without doubt progenitors of
the Shetland pony of to-day.
[Illustration: THE HORSE ON THE BRESSAY STONE.]
In 1576 we find the use of horses by the laird matter of dispute
in Shetland. “The Parochinaris of Wais ... deponis that quhen the
Laird come throw their parochin, giff the worst boy that was in his
companie got not ane horse to ride upon, the Laird wold gar thame that
refusit pay 40 babeis thairfair of Zetland payment.”[16] In 1614 it is
recorded by Mackaile that “the horses are little in Orkney”;[17] while
at the same period we have an Act to restrain the grazing of “wyld
horsis”;[18] and shortly afterwards, in 1628, an Act “anent ryding and
cutting of other men’s horsis taillis.”[19]
Within a few years after this the Shetland pony is clearly identified;
for Captain John Smith says in 1633: “Their Horses, which they called
Shelties, some of which I have seen, are little bigger than Asses, but
very durable.”[20]
From this date onwards we have a continuous record of the pony, growing
in definiteness as time goes on. “The horses,” says the Rev. Hugh Leigh
in 1650, “are of a little size and excellent mettell: for one of them
will easily carry a man or woman 20 miles a day; and they will live
till they be 20 or 30 years of age though they be never stabled summer
or winter.”[21] Travellers comment on its small size, its strength,
and its excellence. Thomas Kirke, in his diary, reports a visit to
“Burra’s” house (Stewart of Burray in Orkney). “We dined before we
went away, having been very well treated, and at our departure he
bestowed a little Shetland horse upon us, so low that I could easily
stand on the ground with the horse under me.”[22] The Orkney horses
in 1693 are, according to Wallace, “little yet strong and well mettald,
most of which they get from Zetland, and are called Shelties.”[23]
In 1701 we have a full and clear description by Brand which places
beyond doubt the fact that the pony whose history we have traced from
the vague suggestions of earlier times is the Shetland pony as we have
it now.
“I think the kine and sheep are of a greater size than they are
in Orkney, though their horses be of a less; they have a sort of
little horses called shelties, than which no other are to be had if
not brought hither from other places; they are of a less size than
the Orkney horses, for some will be but nine, others ten nives or
handbreadths high, and they will be thought big horses there if eleven;
and although so small yet they are full of vigour and life, and some
not so high as others often prove to be the strongest, yea there are
some whom an able man can lift in his arms, yet will they carry him
and a woman behind him eight miles forward and as many back; summer or
winter they never come into a house, but run upon the mountains in some
places in flocks, and if at any time in winter the storm be so great
that they are straitened for food, they will come down from the hills,
when the ebb is in the sea, and eat the sea-ware (as likewise do the
sheep), which winter storm and scarcity of fodder puts them out of
case, and bringeth them so low, that they recover not their strength
till about St John’s mass-day, the 24th of June, when they are at their
best; they will live to a considerable age, as twenty-six, twenty-eight
or thirty years, and they will be good riding in twenty-four,
especially they will be the more vigorous and live the longer, if they
be four years old before they be put to work.
“Those of a black colour are judged to be the most durable, and the
pied often prove not so good; they have been more numerous than they
are now; the best of them are to be had in Souston and Eston, also they
are good in Waes and Yell, these of the least size are in the Northern
isles of Yell and Unst.
“The coldness of the air, the barrenness of the mountains on which
they feed, and their hard usage may occasion them to keep so little,
for if bigger horses be brought into the country, their kind within a
little time will degenerate; and, indeed, in the present case we may
see the wisdom of Providence, for their way being deep and mossy in
many places, these lighter horses come through, when the greater and
heavier would sink down; and they leap over ditches very nimbly, yea up
and down rugged mosses, braes or hillocs with heavy riders upon them,
which I could not look upon them, but with admiration, yea I have seen
them climb up braes upon their knees, when otherwise they could not get
the height overcome, so that our horses would be but little if at all
serviceable there.”[24]
This statement is repeated by Martin in its essential features a few
years later. “This Country produces little Horses, commonly call’d
Shelties, and they are very sprightly, tho’ the least of their kind to
be seen any where; they are lower in stature than those of _Orkney_,
and it is common for a Man of ordinary Strength to lift a _Sheltie_
from the ground: yet this little creature is able to carry double. The
black are esteemed to be the most hardy, but the pyed ones seldom prove
so good: they live many times till Thirty Years of Age and are fit for
service all the while. These Horses are never brought into a House, but
exposed to the Rigour of the Season all the year round; and when they
have no grass, feed upon sea-ware which is only to be had at the Tide
of Ebb.”[25]
Brand’s account, confirmed by Martin, completes the series of
statements by which we are compelled to recognise that the Shetland
pony of to-day is the lineal descendant, with or without some degree of
cross-breeding, of a pony which has lived in Shetland from very early
times.
The characteristic which most definitely asserts itself throughout
all the descriptions, and which is displayed by the Sumburgh bones,
is small size; and the significance of this characteristic is greatly
increased by the fact that it remains unaffected by great changes in
the conditions under which the pony is reared.
The common and obvious suggestion is that the ponies of Shetland
were individually made small by the severity of the conditions under
which they lived—that they were and are dwarfs stunted by starvation.
But this suggestion is inconsistent with the undeniable result of
experience, that the Shetland pony remains small, and indeed shows no
tendency whatever to increase in size, when it is reared in Southern
climates and generously nourished.
Twenty years ago even so experienced a breeder as Mr Robert Brydon
wrote of the South-country studs: “I cannot help pointing out the
difficulty their owners will have to contend with in keeping the size
within Stud-book requirements.”[26] Experience, however, has shown this
to be a wholly groundless fear. The apparent tendency of the breed in
England and Scotland is not to increase but rather to diminish in size:
the mainland—bred ponies are not larger but smaller than those on the
Islands; and perhaps the present danger is that they may become too
small for use and perfect symmetry.
The fact is that there have always been small horses in Britain—at all
events in Northern Britain. The remains recently found in the Roman
camp at Newstead include horse bones which indicate that the native
horses there were from 11 to 13 hands in height. In Shetland there have
probably never been large horses.
The size of other horses, originally larger, has been gradually
increased, partly by crossing and partly by a deliberate artificial
selection, until a sustained effort, forming part of a general
agricultural development, has eventually produced the Clydesdale and
the Shire horse of to-day. Increase of size has always, of course, been
subject to the limits imposed by the available food-supply, so that
while the Clydesdale has been of comparatively old standing in the
Lowlands, a much smaller horse held the field until quite recently
in the Highlands and in Orkney; while, within the Highland area
itself, the so-called “garron,” of Perthshire and the richer parts of
Inverness-shire, has for its Island counterpart the smaller, harder,
and more active Hebridean pony. But it is impossible to explain these
variations of size and type as the direct product of liberal or scanty
feeding, although it is no less impossible to disregard the limiting
influence of local conditions which prescribe to each district at each
period of its development the size and type of horse which can be
maintained in vigour within it. Similarly the Shetland pony is not a
horse reduced in size by the scarcity of herbage in Shetland. It is the
horse whose type and qualities procured its survival in those Shetland
conditions which prohibited any considerable increase in its size.
These same conditions fixed other characteristics as well. They
prescribed and produced a degree of vigour and robustness fitted for
the maintenance of life in adversity, and for the performance of feats
of labour and endurance apparently impossible for so small a physical
frame: the “mettall past belief” is the mark of a survivor in hard
circumstances. They gave a great advantage to individuals sheltered
by abundant mane and tail, and, above all, by that waterproof double
coat of thick fur and long hair which alone can maintain warmth in wind
and rain and mist. They favoured that docility and sweetness of temper
which make the Shetland pony more truly domestic than any other horse,
because they made it essential that the pony should live in intimate
dependence on its owner; and these qualities of disposition find their
expression in the small ear and the large soft full eye which are so
characteristic of the breed.
The Shetland pony as every one knows it—small, robust, gay, shaggy,
alert, strong of bone, short-eared, large-eyed—is the product of
natural conditions and human needs in Shetland; and it is a definite
race, established by long selection, having characteristics indelibly
fixed. It has already been said that within this unity of race there
remains real and very considerable variety of type—a variety hardly
less great than that which we find between larger breeds of horses;
and the fact that the various types do not breed true, but are
interchangeable, points to a far-back mixture of races. Yet, in its
widely varying developments, the pony remains a fixed breed; and so
long as its racial purity is retained its virtues are ineradicable.
CHAPTER II.
The Pony in Shetland.
The Shetland pony is almost more conspicuous in the simple farming
economy of his own Islands than other horses are in British
agriculture. He has been the constant theme of travellers and
dwellers in Shetland; and their references show that he has been a
dominant interest there throughout the whole known history of his
home. The statements which have already been quoted are continued
and corroborated up to our own day; and everywhere we find the same
description of the ponies—their small size and their courage and
endurance.[27]
Typical of many accounts of them is that given by Campbell in 1750.
“There are little horses in this Island, which the Inhabitants call
Shelties; they are so very small that one may lay his leg over them
from the ground; but notwithstanding their Smallness they are both
strong and active, and live many years, even till they are blind with
Age: I have heard say, some of them live till they are upwards of
thirty, and they are never kept within Doors, but are foaled in the
Fields, live in the Fields, and die in the Fields. They do little
Work, unless it be to carry some Sea Weed, to dung the Ground in the
Seed-Time. There is no Horse-hire.”[28]
Throughout the narratives of eye-witnesses we find everywhere the fact
that the ponies are reared and kept in conditions of great hardship.
A Highland Society’s report in 1801 tells us that “the horses live
in the open fields, summer and winter, night and day, and never get
a mouthful except what they can gather, not even when the ground is
covered with snow. At the season of labour they are, of consequence,
miserable, lean, and weak; so late as the middle of June they are
little else than skin and bone, covered with long hair like goats, yet,
even in that situation, their spirit is astonishingly great.”[29]
“They would be more numerous,” says Gifford, “if in any way cared
for; but they lie out in the open fields summer and winter, and get no
food but what they can find for themselves; so in bad winters many of
them die with hunger and cold. It will, no doubt, be wondered at by
strangers that so little care is taken about these sheep and horses
which are so useful and beneficial; the reason whereof is, that the
poor inhabitants, having used their utmost endeavours, can scarce find
food and shelter for their oxen and cows, without which they could not
live; and in hard winters many of them die for want of fodder, so they
have none to bestow on their sheep and horses, until they find more
time to improve the land.”[30]
[Illustration: BY THE VOE.]
It should perhaps be kept in mind, as a qualification of these
comments, that while dependent on some degree of help in finding
food in winter, and especially so in the poorer parts of Shetland,
the pony is much less in need of shelter than most other animals, and
appears, indeed, to thrive much better even when he is exposed to
severe weather conditions than when he is kept indoors. But the lot
of the Island pony is still a hard one in the long winters, when the
scanty livelihood which he can gather on the mosses, by the dyke-sides,
and on the sea-shore is but poorly supplemented by the occasional sheaf
of oats which is all that his owner can usually allow him.
The great majority of the ponies in the Islands are in the hands of
crofters, either owned by them or held on the system of “halvers,”
under which merchants or others supply brood mares in return for a half
interest in their progeny.
The mares nursing foals are kept usually about the croft until their
foals are old enough to follow them to the “Scathold”; other ponies
spend their whole summer in the hills, returning to the nearer fields,
after the crops are cleared, when the approach of winter makes some
additional food necessary.
It is still too common, though less so than formerly, to leave the
foals unweaned, with the result that the mares so treated usually foal
but once in two years. This wasteful plan is due to the difficulty
of finding food for the weaned foals; but the attempted economy so
completely defeats its own object that it cannot fail to die out.
In the beginning of last century we find the Highland Society’s report,
already quoted, referring to “an absurd custom among the farmers of
preserving for stallions ... the most unpromising of the young of the
species”;[31] and very competent observers state in 1845 that “the
ponies are now much smaller in size than they were thirty years ago,
entirely owing to the fact that all the best and stoutest are exported,
and stallions of the most puny size are allowed to go at large.”[32]
It would appear from this that the selective process by which the
small size of the pony has been fixed and exaggerated was not, at this
period, one deliberately and consciously promoted, but was contrary
to the wishes of those who regarded the interest of the breed, and
was the result of economic pressure which encouraged the export of
the larger and more valuable ponies, leaving the smaller and cheaper
stallions to be employed as stud animals. Larger and not smaller ponies
were in point of fact desired; and the decline in size, which seems to
have taken place at this period, was a consequence of the poverty and
perhaps also of the short-sighted thrift of the crofting owners.
This fact, indeed, sets aside the argument of Mr Vero Shaw[33] and
others, that the breed must always have been kept pure, because no
cross could be used to improve it by reducing its size. The temptation
to introduce alien blood came from the opposite motive—a desire to
increase size; and when we read that in 1788 “a fine young horse of the
Norway breed had perished in a marsh,”[34] we see that the materials
for cross-breeding, as well as the motive to practise it, were actually
in existence—the results probably remaining in the larger ponies now
used for draught in Shetland.
It must be observed that a scarcity of really good stallions, probably
arising from the same causes as formerly, is still the chief impediment
to the improvement of the Shetland pony in his native home. But this
cause no longer operates to reduce size, as fashion has created a
demand for excessively small ponies, which tempts the poorer owners
rather to sell than to keep them.
In 1865 we have the first record of an actual attempt to reduce the
size of the pony, in the very interesting notes on Shetland pony
breeding made by “The Druid” in ‘Field and Fern.’
[Illustration: GOING SOUTH.]
“Colonel Balfour, grandfather to the present proprietor of
Shapinsay, began pony breeding at the end of the last century. He
improved the form; and when the colours did not come as they expected,
the natives, with a few drops of whiskey to quicken them, laid the
entire blame on Spunky, the Orcadian water-kelpie.
“He was black, they say, and the sire of some of the finest original
ponies of the islands; and if he was disturbed in his courtships, he
vanished under the waves in a mass of blue flame.
“The Hellersay stock have been quite able to dispense with him, as
North Unst has furnished them with some of its choicest jewels.
“Brisk, the chestnut, dates very far back, and headed the Balfour stud
for wellnigh thirty years, and his brother Swift was in the flesh for
nearly forty-six.
“The piebald Cameron cost £24, and although he rather spoilt the
colours, he introduced a better shape, a smaller head, and decidedly
truer action. Odin, of the same colour, also kept up the form; Thor got
them nearly all skewbalds like himself; and Lord Minimus was a grey
and sire of grey beauties. They are shifted from island to island as
the grass suits, and require the most careful drafting to keep them at
nine hands. Mr Balfour has about 40 in all, of which the majority are
duns and creams; and they are always broken at three, and made very
tractable in a week. Her Majesty has a pair of them; and some of the
more fancy colours were once picked up by Ducrow.”[35]
Colonel Balfour, whose enterprise is referred to by “The Druid,” was
probably the first to attempt breed improvement in the Shetland pony.
His grandson, in “The Druid’s” day, was in all likelihood the first
breeder who made a systematic and deliberate effort to accentuate the
small size which the poverty of nature and man had already fixed as a
breed-characteristic; and his example has not been very widely followed
in Shetland.
It cannot, in fact, be said that, on the whole, any clear idea
dominates the plans or purposes of pony breeders in the Islands.
Individual breeders here and there have pursued an enlightened course
in endeavouring to improve their herds; and it is natural that their
choice of breeding stock should have been determined largely by the
nature of the commercial demand. They have thus been led to concentrate
their attention mainly on the production of animals with the weight
of body and strength of bone which have been demanded by British and
foreign buyers. On the other hand, the conditions of existence in
Shetland have greatly contributed to the preservation of an active type
of pony such as can gain its livelihood on the poor and mossy pastures
of the Islands.
It must be remembered that in many districts there has been, as has
already been said, a great dearth of good sires, so that selection
of suitable breeding stock has been difficult, and mating has often
been carried on, of necessity, very much at haphazard. It is thus all
the more remarkable that the pony, so long neglected and so little
cultivated in its home, should display so high a degree of excellence
as it does. Much of the credit of this belongs to the Marquis of
Londonderry, whose stud in Bressay, under the charge of Mr Brydon
and Mr Meiklejohn, developed a strain of ponies which fixed many of
the best qualities of the breed and became a potent centre of its
improvement; and no account of the Island ponies would be complete
which did not mention the successful activity of Messrs John Anderson &
Sons of Hillswick, the late Mr Bruce of Sumburgh, Mr Anderson Manson,
and the Messrs Sandison. Notable throughout Shetland, the fine quality
of the pony is specially conspicuous in Unst, which still retains
the superiority which “The Druid” found in it in 1865. “The best
ponies come from Unst; but both there and everywhere the breeders
are far too indifferent to the points of a sire, as long as they are
foal-getters. About a quarter of Unst has a skeleton of red sandstone
and serpentine, with a thin soil studded with large red stones and the
knobs of rock sticking up. Yet among these rocky incumbrances one sees
scores of ponies picking the green grass, which the light of Heaven
and the breath of the Gulf Stream force up from so barren-looking
a bed. Still, Unst may be regarded as the heart of Shetland; and a
sunny, genial-looking spot it is, when other parts of the country
are dismal enough, in the late northern spring. The heather and the
bog-grasses elsewhere do not make much milk, and the mare ponies sink
so much in condition that they are invariably barren every other year.
If well kept they reach 44 inches; but the average is from 38 to 42.
Their owners frequently lose sight of them for a couple of summers,
and recognise them when wanted, not by any formal ‘Exmoor Brand’
on the saddle place or the hoof, but by a peculiar slit or bits of
tape, clout, or leather tied through a hole in the ear. Each cottar
has generally a few ponies on the hill, and when the May and October
sales at the different stations are at hand they circumvent them for
a selection by the dealers with a line of forty or fifty fathoms.
Still, the hard-working Shetlander is little more than nominal lord
of his pony: poverty is his lot from the cradle to the grave, and, as
the phrase goes, he is ‘still in tow.’ In his dire need the merchants
become his mortgagees, just as the curers are to the herring-fishers:
they advance money on the security of his foals, and he doesn’t get the
best of it with ‘halvers’ mares.”[36]
The chief defects of the Island ponies are to be found in the movement
and conformation of the hocks—“cow hocks” being common, and also a
tendency to excessive bending of the joints. There is, in fact, a look
of “curbiness” about many of the ponies which renders it surprising
that curb itself—like almost every other unsoundness—occurs but rarely.
How far these hock defects are caused or aggravated by undue hardship
in early life cannot easily be estimated, but they can certainly be
greatly mitigated by more generous treatment. Apart from them—and from
a tendency to roach backs, undoubtedly aggravated by poor rearing—the
Island ponies present few common defects that are practically serious;
but their general appearance is often much deteriorated by insufficient
care in early life.
In colour the pony is much more variegated in the Islands than on the
British mainland, where black and brown increasingly predominate.
In some parts of Shetland—notably in the western district of
Sandness—piebalds and skewbalds are more common than self-coloured
ponies; while chestnuts, yellow duns, and mouse-duns (sometimes
curiously called “greys”) are exceedingly frequent.
But we still find as “The Druid” did in 1865: “Duns are in great
request; but the colour is not so much an object if the bone be only
good. Greys and chestnuts are scarce; bay has not its wonted supremacy;
and bays and blacks are most common. Some buyers began to go against
piebalds from a belief that they had Iceland blood in them, and were
softer and slower in consequence.”[37]
The employment of Shetland ponies in Shetland is now much less than it
was formerly. Speaking generally, they have become a breeding stock,
kept for sale rather than for work. Somewhat larger ponies—from 11 to
12½ hands—are in very common use in carts; and these are probably
cross-bred ponies partly of Shetland ancestry. But the introduction of
wheeled vehicles in the latter part of last century almost made an end,
in practice, of the pony as a means of transport in its own home.
[Illustration: COMING FROM MARKET.]
The fact—apt to be forgotten in controversies about Shetland pony
type—is that the pony never until quite recently was a draught animal.
Roads did not exist in Shetland until they were made, in and after
1847, in order to give employment for the relief of distress caused
by the potato famine. Till then wheeled vehicles were practically
unknown, and the ponies were used only as pack and saddle animals.
We read of them “travelling through the country among the rocks and
mosses”;[38] and Edmonstone gives us a luminous glimpse at once of
Shetland society and of the stature of the riding ponies:—
“Winter is the season of general mirth and festivity in Zetland,
although the wish to visit each other is greatly interrupted by the
difficulties which are attendant on travelling. As there are no regular
roads, a journey over land is a serious undertaking, for the ground is
wet and unequal and the ponies are low.”[39]
One seems to see the cavalcade picking its way through the moss, riders
holding up their feet to avoid the soft ground through which their
mounts find a path, and ladies tremulous over the fate of the precious
burdens of the pack-ponies.
Hibbert gives us an even more complete picture of the Shetland pony in
use a hundred years ago:—
“A walk through the valley near Woodwick leads to a large open lawn
at the end of the Loch of Cliff, which seemed very populous and well
cultivated. I arrived there on the Sabbath morning; the natives of
the Vale were all in motion in their way to the Kirk of Baliasta.
The peasant had returned home from the bleak scathold, where he had
ensnared the unshod pony that was destined to convey him to the
parish kirk. No currycomb was applied to the animal’s mane, which,
left to nature’s care, ‘ruffled at speed and danc’d in every wind.’
The nag was graced with a modern saddle and bridle, while on his
neck was hung a hair-cord, several yards in length, well bundled up,
from the extremity of which dangled a wooden short-pointed stake.
The Shetlander then mounted his tiny courser, his suspended heels
scarcely spurning the ground. But among the goodly company journeying
to the kirk, females and boys graced the back of the shelty with much
more effect than long-legged adults of the male sex, whose toes were
often obliged to be suddenly raised for the purpose of escaping the
contact of an accidental boulder that was strewed in the way. A bevy
of fair ladies next made their appearance, seated in like manner on
the dwarfish steeds of the country, who swept over the plain with
admirable fleetness, and witch’d the world with noble horsemanship.
The parishioners at length arrived near the kirk, when each rider in
succession, whether of high or low degree, looked out for as green a
site of ground as could be selected, and, after dismounting, carefully
unravelled the tether which had been tied to the neck of the animal.
The stake at the end of the cord was then fixed into the ground, and
the steed appeared to be as satisfactorily provided for during the
divine service as in any less aboriginal district of Britain, where it
would be necessary to ride up to an inn, and to commit the care of the
horse to some saucy lordling of the stables.”[40]
Peat-carrying appears to have been one of the main duties of the pony
in the early part of last century.
“It appears that the use of the shelty, which is seldom more than from
nine to eleven hands high, is principally confined to the carrying home
of peat; yet, in the transportation of other kinds of light burdens,
his back is still surmounted with a wooden saddle. When hay or any
light bulky substance is to be carried, _maiseys_ are used, which are
made of ropes prepared from _floss_ or rushes, these being reticulated
in meshes of some inches in width. A net of this kind is passed round
the horse, so as to secure the hay or other light substance that rests
upon the boards of the klibbar. This ancient saddle is also found of
use when the shelty is required by the female rider to bear her to the
parish kirk; she then throws over his back a native coarse manufacture
of the country, woven into the shape of a saddle-cloth, and when upon
this covering the klibbar is fixed, its projecting pieces of wood which
the female holds by, form it into a kind of sidesaddle.”[41]
Till recent times, long after the ridden shelties had given place to
the road-using gig, ponies were almost universally employed as carriers
of peat.
Cowie writes in 1874: “The peats are now dry, and are either built into
a stack on the hill, thence to be gradually removed in _cassies_ during
the year, or are immediately conveyed home on the backs of ponies, or
in carts. The apparatus by which the pony is now literally turned into
a beast of burden consists of a pair of straw panniers or _maysies_
attached to a wooden clibber.
“This process of transport is termed leading the peats. Long strings
of ponies engaged in this way may be seen in the month of July, under
the command of _peat boys_.”[42]
In the remoter Islands, ponies are still to be seen carrying creels
of peats: but even this is now an extinct use in most districts. The
pure-bred pony in the Islands has never been a draught animal to any
great extent; and with the introduction of wheeled conveyances its
employment has almost entirely disappeared.
Another ancient use—in a sense a by-product—of the pony has also
ceased. We find in the old laws of Shetland not merely prohibition to
“ride, labour, or use any other man’s horse without liberty of the
owner,” but also to “cut any other man’s horse—tail or main—under
the pain of ten pounds.”[43]
Thus did the horse-owning fisherman protect the material of his lines.
But this use of the pony became extinct even before the changes had set
in which are relegating line-fishing to the region of dead industries.
[Illustration: CARRYING PEATS.]
Yet, although the local employment of the pony is a thing of the
past, its production remains a profitable part of Shetland farming.
The early records show very low prices for ponies. The ‘Statistical
Account,’ 1845, places them at from £1, 10s. to £5; “The Druid,” in
1865, sets the value of horses at £7, and of mares at £5;[44] and
even in 1871, when the coal-pits had been using Shetland ponies for
twenty years, Cowie valued the horse at £8 to £10, and the mare at £3
to £5. Such prices bear no relation to those of recent years, when
good stallions have realised from £18 to £20 for pit work, while
better ponies, when fully pedigreed, command very much larger prices.
At the earlier rates ponies can have yielded but a poor profit;
but under recent conditions they must give a large return on the
comparatively small cost of breeding and rearing them in Shetland; and
this increasing profit encourages the hope that crofters and others
in Shetland may be more energetic in the future than they have been
in the past, in improving the pony which is one of the best assets of
their Islands.
THE FETLAR PONY.
The Island of Fetlar contains, besides pure Shetland ponies, a
distinctive breed of its own.
The Fetlar pony is not, indeed, of pure race. Its origin is traced to
an animal which has often been called a “mustang,” but was in point of
fact a grey Arab, presented by the famous General Bolivar to the late
Sir Arthur Nicolson. From 1837 onwards, for some years, this horse was
crossed with the native ponies of the Island, which were presumably
somewhat larger than those of other parts of Shetland, Fetlar being
one of the best grazings in the Islands. For many years the influence
of this horse showed itself in a large proportion of grey ponies in
Fetlar. Later, another Arab was introduced; and an Orkney garron
cross was also used. The resulting product is a pony of about twelve
hands—ranging from eleven to thirteen—from which the grey colouring is
now practically eliminated. The ponies bred in this way show a degree
of unity in type and size which is truly remarkable, in view of the
apparently very different sources from which they are sprung. Indeed,
the singular fidelity to type of this essentially cross-bred pony is
highly suggestive of a common element in the ancestry of the Arab and
the Shetland pony. The Fetlar is, in type and quality, one of the best
of native ponies. It has a good deal in common with the ponies of the
outer Hebrides.
CHAPTER III.
The Modern Pony.
The Shetland pony, as now produced on the British mainland, is chiefly
derived from the stud established by the Marquis of Londonderry in the
Islands of Bressay and Noss in 1870,[45] and carried on by him there
under the management of Mr Robert Brydon and the late Mr Meiklejohn
until its dispersal in 1899. It was in this stud that the standard was
set by which showyard judging has proceeded during the last twenty
years; and it was here also that the type of the modern pony was
created and fixed by selection and close inbreeding.
The stud was originally intended for the purpose of breeding pit-ponies
for its owner’s collieries in Northumberland; and this purpose is
reflected in the type which is characteristic of the “Londonderry”
pony. It is commonly said that the governing formula of the stud was
“as much weight as possible, and as near the ground as it can be got”;
and, so far as it goes, this formula—admirably adapted as it is for
defining a pit-pony—is no bad description of the result attained in
many instances. While the original object of the stud was never lost
sight of in its policy and management, it was carried out by skilful
and enthusiastic breeders, who set themselves to eliminate defects of
conformation which were common among the Island ponies. The consequence
was a degree of breed improvement which is perhaps without a parallel
as the result of less than thirty years of breeding and management.
But not only is the source of improvement in the modern pony to be
found chiefly in this one stud. It is also traceable—as in so many
other breeds—mainly to a single animal.
If it be true that the modern pony is substantially the “Londonderry”
pony, it is hardly less true that the “Londonderry” pony is the pony
that is bred from the horse Jack (16), foaled in 1871, which came into
Lord Londonderry’s possession as a colt, and was the sire or grandsire
of almost all the stallions used in the stud, as well as of a third of
all the mares that are recorded as belonging to it.
Some idea of the extraordinary predominance of Jack in the stud may be
gathered from the entries in the first nine volumes of the ‘Shetland
Pony Stud-Book,’ in whose tenth volume the dispersal sale of the stud
at Seaham Harbour is recorded. We find that in the period covered by
these entries, nineteen stud horses were used to a greater or less
extent. Of these, in addition to Jack himself, there were his three
sons, Laird of Noss (20), Lord of the Isles (26), and Odin (32); and
his eight grandsons, Thor (83), Sigurd (103), Emeer (131), Runolf
(62), Najal (75), Lava (121), and Otkell; while Oman (33), his
great-grandson on the dam’s side, was also considerably used. We find
also that these ponies related to Jack were much more extensively bred
from than the unrelated sires, so that of the four hundred and ninety
foals entered as produce, two hundred and forty-eight are by Jack and
his three sons, and a hundred and sixty by his eight grandsons; while
thirty-six are by Oman, and only forty-six by sires wholly unrelated to
Jack.
[Illustration: JACK (16).]
An analysis of the list of dams bred from in the stud accentuates
the meaning of these figures; since out of a total of a hundred and
twenty-five entered in the Stud-Book, seventy-six are by Jack and his
three sons, while ten are by his grandsons.
The result of this selection of breeding stock appears in the extent to
which the progeny are inbred to Jack. Of the hundred and twenty-five
mares, fifty are sired by Jack, his sons, and grandsons, out of dams
similarly sired; while forty are sired by Jack and his three sons,
out of mares sired by them. Of the four hundred and ninety foals
entered, two hundred and eighty-two are sired by Jack and his sons and
grandsons, out of mares by the same list of sires.
Of the fifty-one mares not bred from Jack and his direct descendants,
twelve were daughters of Prince of Thule (36), and thirty-six by his
son Oman.
Prince of Thule is thus, next to Jack and his sons, the most important
sire element in the stud. His influence, however, is considerably
reduced by the almost exclusive extent to which he was mated with
mares sired by Jack and his sons. Of the twelve mares sired by him,
seven are from daughters of Jack, one from a daughter of Odin, and one
from a daughter of Laird of Noss; while twenty-four of the dams of his
thirty-four foals are daughters of Jack and his three sons.
The influence of his son Oman is similarly discounted, five of his six
daughters bred from being daughters of Jack’s sons, while twenty-eight
of all his thirty-six foals have dams similarly bred.
It is probable that the results of an out-cross of this kind upon an
inbred stock like that created by the continuous use of Jack and his
sons will be slight and transient; and in point of fact the general
influence of Prince of Thule upon the Londonderry Stud has not been
greater than might have been expected.
The singular predominance of the Jack race in the modern pony is
illustrated by the showyard results of recent years.
At twelve shows of the Highland and Agricultural Society held since
the Londonderry Stud was broken up in 1899, a hundred and sixteen
first and second prizes have been awarded in Shetland pony classes.
Of these, a hundred and fourteen have been gained by the progeny of
sires actually in use in the Londonderry Stud: Laird of Noss, Lord
of the Isles, Odin, Oman, and Thor; and of their sons and grandsons.
Laird of Noss, his sons Harold (117), Duncan (147), and Hector (183),
and his grandson Merry Hero (244), sired fifteen; Lord of the Isles,
his sons Multum in Parvo (28), Sigurd (103), Vespa (166), and Naughty
(204), and his grandson Rattler (210), twenty-one; Odin, his sons Olaf
(59), Bonaparte (168), Uniacke (177), Palmer (228), Besieger (235),
Diamond (257), and Peace (325), and his grandsons Monkshood (274) and
Norman (276), twenty-eight; Oman, his sons Frederick (223) and Seaweed
(333), and his grandson Glencairn (314), twenty-five; while Thor was
himself sire of twenty-five; and it is noteworthy that the winner of
the two distinctions not gained by the offspring of Londonderry sires
was bred from a dam inbred to Jack’s grandson Multum in Parvo. Taken
as a whole, this practically exclusive domination of the showyard, for
twelve years, by twenty-six sires of Londonderry origin, of which three
are sons and fifteen are grandsons of Jack, while the remaining eight
are descended from him, and all of them without exception are otherwise
closely related to his stock, is a remarkable demonstration of the
influence of a single stud and a single horse upon the breed as we
have it to-day.
[Illustration: ODIN (32.)]
Of Jack’s parentage nothing is known. It is probable, however, that
he was himself an inbred animal; for close inbreeding is still, and
always has been, the general practice among pony breeders in Shetland,
probably rather through necessity or carelessness than as the result of
deliberate intention; and Jack’s prepotency as a sire lends colour to
this supposition.
He was a black, 40 inches high, and the only portrait of him which
we possess shows him to have been a short-backed and close-coupled
horse of remarkable bone and substance, finely proportioned, and with
a bold and upright carriage. He must have had a sound and vigorous
constitution, since he lived to the age of thirty, and was at stud to
the end of his life.
His most famous son, Odin, also a black horse, was 38 inches high.
Odin’s dam, Nugget, was sired by Tom Thumb (44), whose height is stated
as 34 inches, and who was brought back from work in the pits in 1879
with the view of producing ponies of small size.
Odin was a horse of immense power and robustness, and great
masculinity of appearance. His bone and weight were his most salient
characteristics; but he was a vigorous and active mover, with strong
hock action, though not perfectly straight in his going. He was
disfigured by a head heavy even out of proportion to his general bulk
and weight. He was probably the most successful sire among Jack’s sons,
his male descendants being conspicuously better than the females.
Laird of Noss, also a son of Jack, was a black pony, 38 inches high,
with some white marks on his near side. He was a pony of somewhat
lighter build and more upstanding carriage than Odin, with a finer head
and less bone. He is best known as the sire of the famous horse Harold,
of Duncan, and of Hector; and it is through them that his strain is
perpetuated.
Jack’s other son, among the Londonderry sires, was Lord of the Isles,
a pony which, like his brothers, was black, but was two inches smaller
than they, his height being given as 36 inches. He was a thick and
compact pony, less used in the stud than Odin, who appears to have been
most approved by the stud management, as only sixty-three foals by
Lord of the Isles are recorded against a hundred and nineteen by Odin.
Lord of the Isles is chiefly interesting as the first instance of the
introduction into the blood of the Londonderry sires of the cross of
Prince of Thule, which has already been referred to. His dam Handy was
a daughter of Prince of Thule; and it may perhaps have been from this
source that his reduced size came, for Prince of Thule was himself only
36 inches high. It is significant, too, that Multum in Parvo, a brown
horse 37 inches high, sired by Lord of the Isles out of his own dam
Dandy, is described by those who knew Prince of Thule well as being
exceedingly like him.
[Illustration: MULTUM IN PARVO (28.)]
Multum in Parvo is probably the best-known son of Lord of the Isles,
whose blood is otherwise mainly transmitted through the descendants
of his daughters. He died in 1912 at the age of twenty-eight, having
been foaled in 1884. His crest had latterly fallen over; but he still
retained a singular air of distinction and a picturesque quality hardly
to be discerned in many of the more massive ponies. He must always
have lacked power and weight and strength of action; but his look of
breeding, his quality, and the magnificent abundance and straightness
of his curtain-like mane and forelock, attested an element in his
breeding which should not be lost sight of.
This estimate of Lord of the Isles as a sire is borne out by the
conspicuous qualities of his daughter Boadicea (998). This beautiful
black mare, 36 inches high, is no doubt somewhat deficient in bone. But
she stands almost by herself among Shetland ponies as an example,
approaching closely to perfection, of what a riding-pony ought to be,
with a small and exquisitely shaped head carried high on a clean-cut
and well-arched neck, shoulders that would not disgrace a good
thoroughbred, fine withers and short strong back, and the safe and easy
action that properly belongs to an animal of her type.
Lord of the Isles’ name appears in the pedigrees of a large proportion
of the best Shetland ponies, especially through his famous daughter
Beauty (167); but apart from every other claim that he may have, and in
spite of his perhaps too limited use in the Londonderry Stud, the fact
that he is the sire of Multum in Parvo and of Boadicea entitles him to
rank as a stallion of the first importance.
With these sons of Jack used in the Londonderry Stud must be mentioned
his grandson Thor, now the sole survivor of the original Londonderry
stallions. He is a son of Odin out of Fra (185), and is a brown horse
38 inches high. Like Lord of the Isles, he is related on his dam’s
side to Prince of Thule, her sire; and he represents, therefore, almost
the same combination of strains as Lord of the Isles. At twenty-seven
years old he retains in a remarkable degree the vigour and vitality
of youth. Slightly grey now over the cheekbones, and fallen a little
in his spine, he still holds his crest erect, and moves with freedom,
speed, and gaiety. He is perhaps a little larger in head than is
desirable; but he is a pony of great substance and power, with
abundance of well-shaped bone; and he displays very pure Shetland
character. He was freely used in the Londonderry Stud, fifty-six of his
foals being entered in the Stud-Book—a larger number than is credited
to any other stallion except the sons of Jack.
[Illustration: THOR (83.)]
He has hitherto excelled as a sire of mares rather than of
stallions—Beatrice (1533), Bracelet (1604), Perfection (1489), and
Stella (1496) being among the most famous of his daughters. For about
six years after the Londonderry Stud was broken up he appears to
have been comparatively little bred from; but during the last six
seasons he has been more largely used.
A still greater degree of the Prince of Thule cross was introduced in
Oman, a dark-brown horse 34 inches high. Oman was a son of Prince of
Thule; and his dam Norna was a daughter of Lord of the Isles, himself,
it will be remembered, a son of a Prince of Thule mare. Oman was a
compact and massive pony, showing great quality and good action. Among
his best-known sons have been Frederick (223) and Seaweed (333); while
he was the sire of such mares as Belle of Bressay (1192), Sea Serpent
(1535), Silver Queen (1197), and Harriet (1194).
Prince of Thule represents the one considerable element in the
Londonderry Stud which was unconnected with Jack, and tended perhaps to
counteract his influence. He is described by those who knew him as a
pony of exquisite quality, with a small thoroughbred head, prominent
wide-set reddish hazel eyes, and an exceedingly fine muzzle. He was
short-backed, with strong quarters, somewhat inclined to droop, but
finished with a well-carried tail; and he was somewhat cow-hocked. He
had big wide feet; and his bone was strong, with large joints. His
rein was long and his withers high, though his shoulders were somewhat
straight; he was a conspicuously close mover. In colour he was a seal
brown, with very bright tan muzzle and flanks; and his mane hung to his
knees and his forelock below his nose.
Another sire which had a much less important place in the stud was
Lion, a dun pony 36 inches high, bred by Mr Bruce of Sumburgh. He is
described as a well-coupled pony, but rather long and low.
It will be recognised that Prince of Thule is the source, and probably
the only immediate source among the Londonderry sires, of whatever may
be found in the modern pony to represent that “oriental” type which
it has already been said has all along been an integral element in
the Island pony. The Jack blood is mainly, if not indeed exclusively,
that of the Scandinavian type as opposed to the other type, which is
depicted on the Bressay stone, and which is represented in modern times
by Multum in Parvo and Boadicea. In Prince of Thule, and whatever
impression he may have made on the pony of to-day, is to be found
the main source, within the Londonderry strain, to which those must
turn who desire to produce the riding as distinct from the draught
or pit-pony. It has already been said that his influence is largely
counteracted by the extent to which he and his son Oman were mated
with mares by Jack and his sons. But his stock remain the best hope
of breeding ponies which should combine the many excellences of the
typical “Londonderry” pony with the quality and activity in which it is
apt to be somewhat lacking. It is worthy of note that the combination
of Prince of Thule and Odin blood has always produced a large
proportion of good foals.
When we come to examine the female lines in the Londonderry Stud, we
find, as has already been noted, that they are largely the produce
of the sires which we have just reviewed; and we find also that a
great proportion of the best animals produced trace from a few of the
original mares. No complete analysis in this respect can be attempted;
but it will be found that four mares bulk largely in the formation of
the stud.
I. Darling (174), by Jack (16), was the dam of Darling II. (175), by
Laird of Noss, of Dixie (664), by Odin, and of Beauty (167), by Lord
of the Isles—Beauty being the dam of Besieger (235) and Bretta (811),
both by Odin; while Bretta became the dam of Beatrice and Bracelet by
Thor, and of Belle of Bressay (1192) by Oman.
II. Fra (185), by Prince of Thule, was the dam of Thor by Odin, of
Harold by Laird of Noss, of Frederick by Oman, and of Hildigunna (668)
by Lord of the Isles.
[Illustration: PRINCE OF THULE (36.)]
III. Peggy, by Jack, was the dam of Pride (202) and Princess (203),
both by Prince of Thule—Pride being the dam of Petite (1196) by Odin,
and Princess being the dam of Pansy (1282) by Oman, and of Perfection
(1489) by Thor.
IV. Swertha (211), by Odin, was the dam of Silver Queen (1197) by
Oman, and of Sigurd (103) and Sweetie (676), both by Lord of the
Isles—Sweetie being the dam of Strawberry (1635) and Sapphire (1276),
both by Odin, and of Snowdon (1112) by Thor.
These are the leading mares of the stud. It will be observed that two
of them are daughters of Jack, one of his son Odin, and one of Prince
of Thule; while two of their dams are daughters of Jack, one of his
son Lord of the Isles, and one of Prince of Thule.
The development of the Shetland pony in the studs of present-day
breeders has been greatly advanced by the ‘Shetland Pony Stud-Book,’
which was first issued in 1890, and which has since been published
annually with increasing usefulness and success. The twenty-three
volumes which have now appeared form a record invaluable to breeders.
Dissatisfaction on the part of certain breeders in Shetland, who found
out too late the ill effect of neglecting to enter their ponies (a
dissatisfaction stimulated perhaps by interested persons), has recently
led to the formation of a ‘Shetland Island Pony Stud-Book,’ registering
only ponies bred in the Shetland Islands. This book, however, is of
very secondary interest and importance, and its restricted scope
naturally prevents it from becoming a complete Stud-Book of the breed.
Multiplication of Stud-Books is evidently disadvantageous to a breed;
and it is to be hoped that the Stud-Book proper may soon become once
more the combined record of all pedigreed ponies in Shetland as well as
in other parts of Britain.
Useful Stud-Books of the breed are published in the United States of
America and in Canada.
The pony as we find it in the showyards of Britain and in the studs of
the principal breeders exhibits, in the main, the characteristics of
the Londonderry strain.
Its size remains, as it always has been, its most marked
characteristic. No ponies over 42 inches in height are admitted to the
Stud-Book; and a height of more than 40 inches is properly regarded
as a serious fault. This, indeed, is a matter of vital importance,
since any considerable increase of size deprives the pony of its
individuality and brings it into comparison with other breeds. On the
other hand, there has, in recent years, been a tendency to undue
diminution of size—the former desire of breeders to increase height
having given place to a morbid ambition to produce pigmy ponies. It
must be kept in mind that ponies of sizes less than 34 inches are
of little use for practical purposes, since, unless they are quite
disproportionately massive, they cannot have sufficient weight and
strength for draught, while the undue shortening of their legs deprives
them of the leverage and activity necessary for saddle or harness. It
must also be remembered that the cannon-bone cannot be shortened beyond
a certain point, and that any exaggerated shortness of the fore-leg is
therefore only to be obtained by a disproportionate reduction of length
of arm, fatal to symmetry and productive of cripples. Anything which
tends to make the pony merely an oddity and a toy, and to take it out
of the category of useful or usable horses, is fatal to the prospects
of the breed and should be resisted by breeders and judges.
[Illustration: SAPPHIRE (1276.)]
Speaking generally, about 38 inches is the height which will be found,
while retaining the individual character of the breed, to lend itself
best to symmetry and activity. There are, no doubt, excellent ponies
both larger and smaller; but a study of the recorded measurements of
the best animals will uphold the view that this is the height at which,
speaking generally, the pony can be produced at its best.
The most salient and essential feature of the Shetland pony, next to
its size, is its general air of hardihood and vitality. Stamina and
robustness—capacity to endure both work and hardship—are among its most
essential merits; and they should appear in its demeanour, displayed in
spirit, boldness, and a high though docile and generous temper. Ponies
which show feebleness of appearance or constitution should be rigidly
excluded from the stud and the show-ring, and soundness should be made
essential.
The Shetland pony is one of the soundest of horses—bone defects being
almost unknown in it; and a vigilant watch should be maintained against
anything that might impair its character in this respect. But second
only in importance to physical soundness is the temper and disposition
of the pony; and sluggishness and a lethargic mien should be counted as
serious faults.
The general symmetry of all good horses is very much the same; and
the Shetland pony is no exception. But, in particular, he should be
deep through the heart, short and strong in back, well ribbed up, and
well sprung in barrel. The shoulders should be long and well sloped,
showing sharp and distinct withers. The quarters should be broad and
long, and well filled up, with the tail set high and carried gaily. The
neck should be long, well arched, and powerful, fine at the gullet, and
carrying the head high and well forward.
Perhaps in no point is the present-day Shetland pony so often defective
as in shoulder. Many of the most substantial and characteristic ponies
of the “Londonderry” strain are short and straight in shoulder and
wholly lacking in withers. Such ponies as these may be useful in the
coal-pits, but they are useless above ground. They can never be really
fine and active movers; and they can never be—what the Shetland pony
ought to be—the child’s riding-pony. Shoulders and withers that will
hold a saddle should be regarded as a _sine quâ non_ of a really good
pony. In this respect much yet remains to be done in the improvement of
the breed. In other directions great advance has been made; and long
backs, flat sides, and short and drooping quarters are less in evidence
every year. The general style and symmetry of the pony are steadily
improving.
Nothing in the proportions of a pony more affects his appearance than
the size, form, and carriage of his head. Undoubtedly many of the most
massive and powerful of present-day Shetland ponies are disfigured
by heads which are not merely out of proportion to their size, but
which are also carried much too low. This last defect commonly arises
from; and goes with, defective shoulders; but, from whatever cause it
proceeds, it must be regarded as a most serious blemish, fatal alike
to the appearance of the pony and to his safety and pleasantness as a
mount. To eliminate it from the breed without sacrificing the substance
and power with which it is often associated may be a matter of skill,
time, and patience; but breeders ought not to be satisfied until this
object has been attained.
The head itself should be small and short, wide across the forehead,
relatively long from ear to eye, with a muzzle short and fine and
somewhat hollowed, or almost “dished,” immediately below the eyes,
which should be large, full, and prominent, looking well forward, so
as to be clearly seen from in front. “Ringle” or “wall” eyes are a
serious though not a common defect and should be discouraged. The ears
should be small and erect, wide set, but pointing well forward, the
nostrils wide and open. The shape and carriage of the head are even
more important than its size.
[Illustration: BOADICEA (998.)]
It is perhaps in limbs and joints that the modern pony marks the
largest advance upon his unimproved Island forefathers. Reference has
already been made to the apparent “curbiness” of the hocks of many
Island ponies. This is a defect that has very largely been bred out
of the Londonderry strain, in which good joints, and particularly
good hocks, have, with occasional exceptions no doubt, become well
established. Strong and muscular limbs should characterise the Shetland
pony—long and powerful forearms and thighs, large, low-set knees and
hocks, flat and clean bone below them, and fairly long pasterns. A
common fault in some strains is lack of muscle in the second thighs,
which is often so exaggerated that the pony has the appearance of
having a deep hollow behind the thigh instead of an easy line from the
quarters to the hocks.
On the whole, the feet of the Shetland pony are good—large, round, and
open, of fairly hard and very sound texture. Occasionally, however,
narrow and contracted feet are found; and these should be regarded as a
serious defect.
The coat of the pony is one of its most familiar and characteristic
peculiarities, consisting as it does of fine thick fur below and an
outer covering of longer and harder hair growing through it. Any
weakness of coat is a serious fault, not only as being a departure
from a deep-rooted characteristic of the breed, but also on the most
practical grounds. No better protection could be imagined against wind
and rain than the thick undercoat, waterproofed by the outer hair,
from whose damped locks the water drips along the pony’s sides, while
the under parts of the body remain dry and warm. In summer the shaggy
coat,—falling off in ragged masses, is replaced by a sleek and fine
hair. At all seasons the tail, mane, and forelock are as picturesque
as they are useful in protecting the pony against weather and flies.
They should be abundant, the hair strong in texture, and straight,
falling flat, and, like the foot hair, free from any tendency to curl.
It is an interesting characteristic of the Shetland pony that many
animals shed in autumn the upper lock of the tail in such a way as
to look as though the hair had been scrubbed off, although on actual
examination it will be found that the hair is cast from the root and
grows in again. A similar appearance is undoubtedly represented in
prehistoric horse-portraits.
All colours are permissible in the Shetland pony, although black and
dark-brown are now most common, and are preferred in the Islands by
the oldest traditions, which associate piebald and skewbald colours
with softness of temper and with a strong suspicion of Norwegian
cross. White markings in ponies other than piebalds and skewbalds are
an undeniable blemish, particularly if they take the form of white
stockings and the accompanying white hoofs. Dun, grey roan, and dappled
grey are good colours, which should not be allowed to die out: the
dappled grey should have blue hoofs.
Action is increasingly regarded, and rightly so, by judges in the
showyard; and it is of the utmost importance in practice. It should, of
course, be perfectly true and straight: dishing, straddling, and wide
hock action are glaring faults. But action should also be vigorous,
light, and springy, not showing the roundness that often disfigures
hackney gait, but with fore-legs well thrown forward from the shoulder
both in walking and trotting, while knees, pasterns, and hocks are
freely and powerfully flexed. It must be admitted that in many Shetland
ponies activity has been unduly sacrificed to abnormal shortness of
limb. This is a point which demands careful attention; and it may be
worth while to note that the ponies in the Islands are, as a rule,
singularly active, as indeed the conditions of their existence
require that they should be.
[Illustration: STELLA (1692.)]
In one other respect modern show standards and conditions threaten
rather to impair than to improve the breed. The appearance of the pony
in the Islands almost invariably suggests a strong and vigorous frame:
in the showyard there are few ponies whose appearance suggests any
frame at all. This is, no doubt, greatly aggravated by the extreme and
excessive fatness of most ponies in the ring; but it points to a real
defect also. Every good horse ought to suggest to the imagination the
general structure of his bony framework; and it ought scarcely to be
possible to conceal this by any reasonable degree of condition, or to
bring about, in a horse, a general appearance of bonelessness such as
might be proper to the carcase of a perfectly fattened Aberdeen-Angus
bullock. Partly from the practice of showing ponies much too fat,
and partly also from the fact that breeders have neglected to seek
for strength of frame as distinct from mere thickness of bones, the
Shetland pony in the showyard has undergone some little deterioration
in this respect. It should not be forgotten by breeders or judges that
a pony whose shoulders, hips, and stifles are not prominent in his
appearance, is either defective in structure or very improperly overfed.
It may well be the case that a rather too exclusive use of the
excellent “Londonderry” strain of ponies requires now to be corrected
by a careful introduction of new blood, and that it is desirable to
make use for that purpose of active, large-framed, vigorous mares of
other Island strains. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that no risk
should be run of sacrificing the results already attained—the power
substance and well-formed joints and limbs, in which the “Londonderry”
ponies excel. On the other hand, there is room, in very important
respects, for progress and improvement in order to bring the Shetland
pony to perfection.
CHAPTER IV.
The Management of Shetland Pony Herds.
Almost no other domestic animal is so easily cared for as the Shetland
pony; and he appears to thrive and prosper in a bewildering variety of
conditions. On the bare shores and hillsides of Shetland, where moss
and seaweed must often supplement the scanty grass, he maintains as
full a vigour, though perhaps not so comfortable an appearance, as he
displays in the almost excessive luxury of some of the South-country
studs.
It must not, therefore, be supposed that, in describing what appears
to be the best system of management, we suggest that no less perfect
system will satisfy the pony’s needs. But, on the other hand, the best
results can only be obtained by giving the most suitable conditions of
development; and the fact that these conditions are not necessary to
the life, or even to the health, of the pony, is no good reason for
neglecting to provide them if they are really most favourable to its
excellence.
Ponies will thrive on a great variety of pastures, and only careful
management is needed to make any land serve their purpose; but it is
of the greatest importance that they should not be kept always on
the same ground. The need for a rotation or alternation of stock on
pastures is generally admitted; and it is specially recognised in the
case of horses, which are well known to make grazings “horse sick” if
they are kept too constantly on the same fields. Shetland pony breeders
are perhaps apt to be less careful in this respect than other owners
of horses; and it cannot be too much insisted on that ponies ought
to be kept in combination with cattle, either grazing with them or,
preferably, alternating with them in the fields.
The quality of grass required naturally varies with the condition of
the stock and the stage of its development. For in-foal and milking
mares it is desirable to have fairly good pasture, such as would
be suitable for dairy cows, so that mare and foal may be kept in
good condition without over-exertion. On the other hand, the chief
requirement of young ponies is abundant space; and large fields are
much better for them than smaller enclosures. They should, therefore,
naturally be run out on much less luxuriant grazings than are desired
for milking mares; they will thrive and develop well on such land as
is suited for hill sheep; and, if this be not available, fields that
have previously been closely grazed by other stock may be used to give
them the space and freedom they require. In whatever way it may be
obtained, this is one of the most important conditions of successful
rearing; and breeders who have not land available to provide it would
do well to board their young ponies out, in summer at all events, where
they can find large stretches of clean grazing; for youngsters of a
year old and upwards will maintain admirable condition in summer on
poor land; and their activity and vitality are greatly increased by
letting them find their living on pastures where the supplies of food
are not too abundant, and where they are induced to travel constantly
over fresh ground.
The foaling mares are the part of the herd to which most regular
attention should be given. They must be kept in vigorous condition; and
it must be remembered that they are under constant strain, giving large
quantities of milk, and at the same time maintaining and developing
the unborn foal. Horse owners are perhaps apt to forget that the mare
is really a very large milk producer—certainly not less so than the
average cow—and that provision should be made for this. It cannot be
too clearly understood that this provision ought to be made in advance.
Good pasture during the nursing season is, of course, desirable; but it
is not sufficient, unless the mare is brought to the time of foaling
in reasonably good condition. Foaling mares ought not, certainly, to
be fat; but they ought to be in a robust and well-nourished state; and
neglect of this must shorten their lives, both by general exhaustion
and by accelerating, through loss of muscular tone, that “falling” of
the womb which is the commonest cause of losses in foaling.
During the last few months, therefore, before the foaling season
begins, the mares should be kept under observation, and supplied with
hay if they seem to require it. Any which, from age or youth or other
causes, are in specially poor condition, should be fed separately and
receive perhaps some oats and bran.
So treated, the mares need usually give their owners no anxiety as
foaling approaches. Care should, of course, be taken by selecting
a proper date for mating, to have the foals born after the coldest
weather of spring is likely to be over, and when some growth of grass
may reasonably be expected. This time will vary for different climates.
In Scotland, the first days of June are usually the best time for
mating, most of the foals being thus born during May, and therefore fit
to be weaned in autumn.
It is the all but universal practice—and certainly the best and
safest—to leave the mare entirely to her own devices during foaling.
She should be left out in the field unless most unusual severity
of weather prevents it; and in almost every case she will foal
successfully without assistance,—indeed, when assistance is required
it is very often unavailing. Mare and foal should be watched to make
sure that the latter is sucking and is being allowed to do so; and in
the rare cases in which any difficulty arises, help must be given
by catching the mare and holding the foal to her. The only other
danger that besets the young foal arises from a stoppage of the lower
bowel which sometimes occurs. This is shown by the foal’s frequent
strainings, and can easily be removed by local action, when discovered;
but neglect of it will result in the death of the foal in a very short
time.
Most of the foals are likely to be born before the time for mating
arrives; but, whether foaled or not, mares should all go together
to the horse with which they are to run during summer. This is
particularly necessary in the case of some horses, which, retaining
the wild gregarious instinct, will not tolerate the addition of a
new mare to the herd. If it be thought that the first ardours of the
stallion are likely to disturb in-foal mares, or if he is suspected of
any tendency, when excited, to attack foals (a possible though rare
occurrence), he may be run for a few hours with fillies or barren
mares, and the herd safely introduced when his excitement has subsided.
The Shetland pony herd is to be treated as a natural—practically a
wild—herd of animals. The less the ponies are interfered with the
better, so long as they have sufficient clean grazing and an ample
water-supply. It is the experience of all breeders that the best
results in the production of foals are obtained from running the horse
constantly with the mares. The herd is kept together until a date early
enough to avoid all risk of next year’s foals being born too late for
autumn weaning.
While proper care and management of the stock are essential to the best
results, yet these results ultimately depend on the skill and judgment
with which the breeding animals are selected and mated.
It is not proposed to attempt here to give rules for the exercise of
the breeder’s art. The principles of breeding are very much the same
in every case. It is, above all, imperative—and especially in the
selection of sires—to insist on soundness and vigour of constitution;
and this becomes the more imperative the more we shelter the progeny
of our stock from the rigour of natural selection, and from such
severe tests of endurance as are imposed on race-horses. We have
seen how closely inbred the leading families of Shetland ponies are;
and, while it is wholly a mistake to suppose that this necessarily
causes enfeeblement or unsoundness, yet it is an additional reason for
exercising the greatest care in excluding these fatal taints.
In Shetland ponies also, as in other races of animals, the actual
excellence of an individual is not a sufficient reason for expecting
corresponding excellence in its progeny. Heredity is an element at
least as important as good individual quality in the selection of
sires and dams; and heredity itself—so complex are the elements that
compose it—is a test of merit far less valuable and complete than the
previous progeny of the animals to be bred from. Mating the best with
the best, and breeding from long lines of fine pedigree, are both
venerated rules; but the breeder who is fortunate enough to obtain
animals already proved to be successful in their offspring has a surer
ground than such rules give for expecting good results. It remains only
that he should discover, by careful study and close consideration, with
what type and heredity the animal he is about to breed from has been
most usefully mated; and he may then hope to produce some proportion
of stock approximating to the type he desires to embody. But he must,
above all things, have a clear idea of what it is that he aims at
creating or reproducing, not necessarily an idea to remain unaltered
by experience and criticism, but yet a view and an aim independent of
changes of fashion and of the varying fortunes of the showyard. Nothing
but failure in breeding can result when a dominating purpose of this
kind is absent.
The present-day breeder of Shetland ponies is neglecting to use the
chief instrument ready to his hand if he fails to take great advantage
of the admirable material created in and descended from the Londonderry
Stud; and he ought specially to remember the value of the combination
of Odin and Prince of Thule blood, which has already been referred
to. But he ought not to make this his only source. The Islands still
contain animals and strains well fitted to be a strength to the breed;
and one of the most interesting parts of a breeder’s work consists in
the careful and gradual introduction of these outside strains of blood.
The conclusion of the foaling period, and the completion of mating,
open a peaceful and pleasant season in the pony-breeder’s year—a
season during which troubles and mishaps are usually few; while the
contented mares, the antics of the foals, and the young stock in their
summer bloom, form a picture contrasting sharply with other scenes
in the passing of the year. The breaking up of the herds in August,
or thereby, and the weaning of the foals in later autumn, bring this
period to a close.
Weaning is a process requiring some little care and attention. The
foals should be taken from their mothers not before the end of their
fourth month, and preferably at least a month later; but weaning ought
not to be unduly postponed, since it is important that the foals should
have recovered from it before the severity of winter is felt. October
is late enough for this, and late enough also to release from her
nursing duties a mare which is to produce another foal in the following
spring.
[Illustration: FOALS IN SUMMER.]
The mares should be relieved, twice or oftener, of any severe pressure
of milk after the foals are taken away, and be kept on poor grass for
a day or two. The foals should be shut in until their first agitation
is over, and be taught to feed from the trough. Any which may have been
weaned earlier than is quite desirable are easily taught to drink
separated cow’s milk with some sugar added—the best of all substitutes
for mare’s milk. For the rest, there is no better food than bruised
oats and bran, at first given as a mash and afterwards dry, with the
addition of a small allowance of linseed meal, molassine meal, or
molascuit. This feeding, with good hay and access to rough grazing,
should be continued throughout winter. During this first winter liberal
feeding is desirable; and adequate shelter should be given in the form
of sheds or open loose-boxes, not to keep the foals warm, but merely to
protect them from rough weather and to secure for them a dry lair in
the long winter nights.
Older ponies need no such provision as this, though they are much the
better of some such shelter as can be obtained from trees, dykes,
good hedges, or steep banks. They should have ample grazing in fields
left rough for the purpose, and should be supplied with hay when
snow is on the ground, and at times when the winter grass proves
insufficient for their needs. It ought to be kept in mind that stormy
and wet weather are much more trying to them than hard frost or even
snow, from both of which they seem to suffer little. Prolonged beating
rain and damp ground to lie on tax their energies severely; and the
wet and innutritious grass requires to be supplemented by dry food of
some kind. In spring the rough pasture, which often seems to have been
wasted in winter, repays its cost, for under its tufts fresh blades of
grass spring early; and the ponies will be found eating old and new
together, and showing the effect of the new growth in the slackening of
their winter coats, which begin to fall off in large masses.
The period of weaning affords an opportunity of examining and treating
the feet of mares and foals. The former usually require nothing but
the shortening of the toes, and perhaps some paring of the hoof wall,
with the removal of any inequalities of wear that present themselves.
The foal’s feet, however, often require a good deal of attention,
specially in order to deal with cavities which are apt to be formed
between the sole and wall of the hoof. These cracks or cavities should
be freely opened up with the drawing-knife, explored and cleaned to the
bottom, sometimes to a depth of over half an inch, and carefully packed
with tow and tar. A similar examination should be made of all young
ponies’ feet twice a-year, and the teeth of aged ponies should also be
carefully inspected.
An essential part of good herd management is the breaking of the
ponies. No pony should remain unbroken; for, apart from every other
reason, there is no means, other than breaking, for securing that
combination of confidence and submission which every domestic animal
should have. Every owner must have had experience of the inconvenience
of having animals which cannot be handled without danger to themselves
and their attendants, because they have never learned to yield to
control, or to trust the ability and good intentions of man. With such
animals ordinary management is difficult; and the treatment of illness,
when it occurs, is hopelessly complicated.
But in addition to this sufficient practical reason, there is the
further fact that without breaking there is no means of discovering
whether an animal is or is not free from vice and ill-temper that make
it undesirable as a sire or dam. It is unfortunately impossible to work
all the Shetland ponies required to be bred from, although the ill
effects of this are mitigated by the almost unvarying docility of the
breed; but it is at all events desirable that the breeding stock should
be tested for temper at some stage of their development.
Breaking is usually no difficult matter. A couple of lessons in
leading, three in reins, and three in the shafts, with probably
one severe conflict of wills in the whole process, will generally
break a Shetland pony. A pony so broken is not of course a finished
child’s mount. Its mouth and manners are still to make; and they ought
not to be neglected, for both can be perfect; and the pony’s mouth
particularly is naturally light and pleasant, although too often ruined
by neglect and bad handling. All this should be carefully seen to
when ponies are to be sent out to work; but for the purposes of herd
management, the breaking just described is all that is needed.
Breaking is followed, in the case of show ponies, by preparation for
show. The pony must learn to stand, walk, trot, and turn under such
discipline as to present itself favourably to the judge. There is all
the difference in the world between a pony showing his paces on a loose
rein and going straight, true, and close, and one which must be held
on a tight rein so that his head is turned round, his fore-feet almost
forced to dish, and his hocks thrown out. The difference is sometimes
one of temperament,—more often it is one of education. Training cannot
turn a bad pony into a good one; but bad training may easily prevent
the best of judges from seeing a good pony; and the fault is not with
the judge but with the exhibitor.
The education of the show pony is a matter of time and patience—chiefly
of endless patience. Some grooms have a genius for it, and those who
have not must secure the result by greater labour; but in any case,
careful practice and regular and sufficient exercise are the chief
means by which the showyard results are obtained. As in every breed,
preparation for show tends to be overdone. Over-fattening, as has
already been said, is the most prevalent fault; but the employment of
bearing-reins is sometimes carried far beyond the point required for
that effective control which is the only justification for tackle; and
a prudent judge will never part from his work till he has seen the
ponies without their trappings, and made sure that his selected winners
can hold up their heads without the aid of straps. A more difficult
problem lies in the tendency to the use of heavy shoes—a practice
imported from the hackney stables to induce high action of the most
useless and unsightly kind. A time may come when weights of shoes will
have to be limited by rule; but it is to be hoped, rather, that firm
and wise judging may convince exhibitors that true, sure, and clean
action does not consist in the pounding motions produced by heavy
shoeing. Good conditioning, development of muscle by exercise, and
careful education are the legitimate preparation for show: everything
else is a more or less successful attempt to deceive.
The diseases of the Shetland pony are comparatively few; but one or two
are apt to occur even in well-managed herds.
Whenever the infection of strangles is brought in, it goes through the
herd, attacking all the young animals and some even of the old.[46]
If it occurs in winter it may be necessary, in severe frost, to bring
patients under cover to protect their wounds from frost-bite; otherwise
it is best treated by keeping them out of doors; and so treated it is
rarely a dangerous disease. Its symptoms are well known—the running
at eyes and nose, the abscesses bursting as they mature, and perhaps
forming and bursting a second time. Open air and liberal feeding are
its sovereign remedies. In the case of foals a special difficulty
arises from their inability to use the muscles of the swollen throat
to suck, and this difficulty—dangerous if ignored—can best be met by
milking the mare at frequent intervals and teaching the foal to drink
from a pail, which it remains able to do.
Other troubles arise from worms—the common thread-worm and the deadly
strongylus.[47] In all cases of the latter veterinary advice must be
obtained. But the best protections against these and similar troubles
arising through infection are, first, to keep ponies always on the
cleanest ground that can be given them; and, second, to supply them
constantly, in every field, with rock-salt to fortify their blood and
stimulate their digestion.
With these precautions and with ordinary care Shetland ponies give
little trouble or anxiety so far as their health is concerned. The
aim of herd management ought to be to supply the most natural life
possible, so as to reduce to a minimum the evils incidental to
confinement within fences. This, with watchfulness and a due but
not excessive liberality in feeding, will ensure health and long
life to the ponies, and, to their owners, a reasonable profit and an
unreasonable degree of pleasure.
CHAPTER V.
The Pony at Work.
It has already been explained that the Shetland pony is now little used
for work in his native Islands, having been displaced by larger ponies
and horses as the development of roads has substituted driving for
riding, and carts for the creels and pack-saddles which are now found
only in the remoter districts.
[Illustration: A TEAM OF MARES.]
The progressive disuse, however, of the pony, as a work animal in
Shetland, has been accompanied by a much greater increase in its
use elsewhere. This has specially been the case in the employment
of ponies in coal-pits, which grew to its height during the very
period in which the use of roads became general in Shetland, and in
which, therefore, but for some new demand for it, the pony might in all
likelihood have come near to extinction.
It was in the middle of last century that ponies were first used in
coal-pits in the north of England,[48] horse ponies over three years
old being imported at the price of £4, 10s. each. Their employment
increased rapidly, until, in the late sixties and early seventies, the
demand became so great that the earlier price was more than quadrupled;
the supply of ponies was practically exhausted; and the Islands were
all but depleted of good stallions; since these only are used in the
pits so as to obviate the inconvenience of working stallions and mares
together. The number now employed is very large, and shows little sign,
so far, of reduction through the increased use of machinery, which
tends to displace rather the larger horses used in the more spacious
main roads than the Shetland ponies which can find their way in the
lower-roofed passages of the pit. There is usually an active demand for
thick, strong colts ready for work, which is not now permitted at less
than four years of age. The Shetland pony—and particularly the pony of
the “Londonderry” type—is admirably adapted for pit work. In structure
he is exactly what is required, massive, muscular, and heavy, and yet
able to walk comfortably in a passage not four feet high. His wise and
placid disposition is no less a recommendation in an animal which is to
work in cramped situations and in surroundings that might overstrain
more excitable nerves than his. The Shetland pony learns easily to
accept and adapt himself to new conditions; he travels with composure
by sea or land; and the introduction of motor-cars into Shetland has
been carried out with much less disturbance to the minds of the equine
than of some of the human inhabitants: no animal could lend itself
better to so strange a service as that of the coal-pits. Mr Brydon
estimates that “it is not overstating the case to say that, on an
average, they will travel over 3000 miles in the course of a year, and
‘shift’ as many tons of coal.”[49]
A considerable sentimental repugnance exists to the employment of
ponies below ground; and to the unaccustomed such a life appears
sufficiently unattractive either to man or horse; but the fact remains
that the life is not on the whole unhealthy: if it lacks the summer sun
it is spared the winter nights. The fable that the ponies become blind
has no better foundation than is given by the fact that a short time
is required to accustom their eyes to the light when they return to
the surface. They are no doubt exposed to accidents; and they are less
protected against overwork and other unfair treatment than they should
be; though this is partly rectified by the provisions of the “Mines
Act” of 1911.
It is only right to say plainly that the general accusation that has
been made of cruel treatment of the ponies in the pits is an entirely
unjust libel upon a class of men who, whatever their failings may
be, are not inhumane. In point of fact, the ponies in the pit are
usually sleek, fat, and contented, and display an affection for their
attendants, and a confidence in man, not easily to be reconciled with
the suggestion that they are habitually maltreated.
[Illustration:
_By permission of the Proprietors of ‘Punch.’_
A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK.]
It must be admitted, nevertheless, that the pit-ponies are the less
fortunate class of Shetlanders, and that the pleasanter career belongs
to those which are selected for what appears to be the natural office
of the pony—that of the child’s first mount. This is no new occupation
for him. A letter, dated 1737, from “Mellerstains” to the writer’s
brother in Bressay, runs: “In several of my letters I have told
you that Lady Binning’s children are from home on account of their
Education, so that a Horse would now be of no use as they’l be grown up
before they settle here again,”[50]—a gift-horse, apparently, somewhat
brusquely declined. Sixty years later a manuscript note, dated 1800,
appended to a copy of Campbell’s ‘Political Survey of Great Britain’
(1774), bears that: “Yoked sometimes to the equipages of the Nobility,
they have attracted the notice of ye metropolis.”[51] We find the
Sheltie, therefore, more than a hundred years ago in favour as a
luxury, and nearly two hundred years ago recognised as a child’s pony.
The pages of ‘Punch’ in the last century bear constant witness to its
popularity for this purpose; and this could hardly be otherwise, for a
child and a Shetland pony are an inevitable combination. Not that the
pony requires so slight a burden; for it is not any ordinary weight of
full-grown humanity, but only length of limb, that prevents the adult
from riding it, as the Dutch seamen used to do in Shetland in spite of
this drawback.[52] But the pony attracts the child as no large horse
can; and it is the ideal mount for early years. Its disposition is
its first and greatest recommendation; for, while of coarse there are
exceptions, generally the Shetland pony is so wise and kind and docile
that it almost teaches the child to ride. Its manageable size and its
admirable nearness to the ground promote the confidence which is the
beginning of equestrian wisdom; and it never shatters or impairs that
confidence by stumbling. This, indeed, is a qualification that is
of capital importance. A pony that falls is of course an impossible
mount for a child; but one that stumbles is scarcely better, since it
constantly suggests the possibility of falling before experience and
practice have neutralised fear. The breadth and strength and balance of
a good Shetland pony make it the surest-footed of all riding animals.
Theorists, without a fact to shelter themselves with, have alleged a
danger to the health of children from sitting astride the big barrel
of the pony, but the answer to them is quite simple. Their fears are
imaginary, for they can produce no justifying instance; and anything
less wide than the Shetland pony—in actual cross-measurement—would,
owing to narrowness of chest, be an unsafe and stumbling mount: so
long as men ride, the Shetland pony will be the most valued and most
valuable possession of the child happy enough to own it. But, to be
the perfect child’s hack or hunter, the Shetland pony must be bred as
a riding-pony: it must have riding action—not the round and hammering
gait of the once fashionable hackney, but the darting, gliding shoulder
action that covers the ground quickly and smoothly. That alone is the
safe and comfortable action of a saddle-horse large or small. Further,
the pony must be bred with a short back and high withers to carry a
saddle. The round low wither that disfigures too many modern ponies
is fatal to the excellence of a saddle-horse, both because it will
not hold a saddle in place and because it goes with short straight
shoulders more proper to the coal-pit than to the road or field.
Incidentally, it may be mentioned that a saddle, in the strict sense,
is not necessary or desirable for a child’s first riding. More ease and
comfort—without any risk to the pony’s back—can be obtained by using
the treeless “pilch,” which pads the back and yet gives closer and
safer contact than the saddle.
Trustworthy as the Shetland pony is, it must still be added that not
only must he be educated, mouthed, and mannered as carefully as a
larger horse, but also he should not be subjected to the temptations
of power. Until a child can really manage and control him, the leading
rein must be kept in regular use, so as to avoid those premature
conflicts and accidents that are as fatal to future horsemanship as
they are to equine manners.
[Illustration: ON DUTY.]
The Shetland pony now goes far afield. In the United States he has
enthusiastic supporters, who allow more laxity in height than British
breeders approve—admitting 44 inches as a legitimate stature. He
goes to Australia, New Zealand, the Argentine Republic, and South
Africa, as well as to many European countries. In Canada, at the
moment, he is in great demand: there he is the school pony; for in
the new wheat lands farms are far from the schools, and a pony is the
child’s conveyance. For this purpose a mount is needed which is easily
kept, docile, and hardy, and which can be hitched to a fence during
school hours without being critical of the state of the thermometer.
The Shetland pony supplies the demand, as if he had been created for
that purpose; and Canadian buyers come to Britain year by year to take
ponies in increasing numbers.
The Sheltie has the great advantage of a singular longevity. Every
one who really associates with them knows how disastrously short a
time dogs and horses live: on no reasonable calculation can they grow
old with their owners. Even the Shetland pony fails of this, but he
makes the bravest of attempts. There are many accredited instances of
ponies living to thirty-five years and upwards; while, among Stud-book
ponies, the famous Jack died at the age of thirty, and his son Odin at
twenty-four, while his grandson Thor still lives in health and vigour
at the age of twenty-seven: with a little luck father and son may learn
to ride on the same Sheltie.
The pony is the most easily kept of all animals. For two or three
pounds a-year he can be maintained; for a little more he can be kept in
hard-working condition—a useful member of a small establishment, and no
unprofitable part of the equine staff of a farm, going over much more
ground, with light loads, and a boy to drive him, than a cart-horse
that will cost nearly ten times as much to keep.
Yet in the end it is idle to deny that it is not his indisputable
economic validity that binds the Sheltie’s lovers to him: rather it
is himself—his wisdom and his courage, his companionable ways, his
gay and willing service. Having taken from him their first falls and
first riding lessons, and fought with him their first battles, they
look forward to an old age in which he shall draw their bath-chairs;
and in the interval of life he provides as a field animal the dual
charm of a creature at once wild and tame—wild in his strong instincts,
his hardihood, and his independence,—domestic in his wisdom and sweet
temper, his friendly confidence in mankind, and his subtle powers of
ingratiation.
APPENDIX
The Making of the Shetland Pony
BY
J. COSSAR EWART, M.D., F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
The Making of the Shetland Pony.
“The horses that are ancient we honour because we know not whence they
came, but the new ones we slight because we know their beginning.”
The Shetland pony belongs to an ancient breed famed for its
intelligence and docility, strength and hardiness, but especially
remarkable because of its small size.
In a recent article on the Shetland pony it is said that “the highest
authorities rather incline to the view that he is an instance of
arrested development, and that all the equine race originally sprang
from ancestors far more diminutive than the smallest Shetland.”
It is doubtless true that the remote ancestors of the Equidæ were
small, but it does not necessarily follow that Shetland, Java, and
other pigmy breeds owe their diminutive size to arrested development. A
human pigmy of West Africa is as well developed as a Hottentot of South
Africa, and a toy terrier is as well developed as a mastiff. There is
hence no _à priori_ reason for assuming that Shetland ponies are not
as well developed—mentally and physically as perfect—as Clydesdales or
Arabs. Moreover, all animals during their development repeat, more or
less, their ancestral history, climb their own ancestral tree, hence if
there is arrested development we should find evidence of reversion to
more or less ancient types. Is there any evidence that in mind or body
the Shetland is an instance of arrested development, or that he owes
his diminutive size to reversion towards remote small ancestors?
It will be well at the outset to ascertain whether the small size
is due to reversion or to dwarfing, induced, partly by unfavourable
surroundings, partly by inbreeding and artificial selection.
_The Size of the Shetland Pony._—Nature unaided has made a pigmy
hippopotamus, pigmy elephants, and pigmy races of man, but there is
no evidence that nature unaided in Europe or Asia in pre-glacial or
post-glacial times produced a wild pigmy race of true horses—_i.e._, of
horses with only one complete toe for each foot.
The smallest wild horses in Britain at the end of the Palæolithic
period (_i.e._, according to a recent estimate some six thousand years
ago) were apparently never under 12 hands at the withers. During the
Bronze age, alike in wild and tame varieties, a size of at least 48
inches seems to have been maintained all over Europe. Further, remains
from Roman military stations indicate that the smallest horses in
Britain during the first century were probably never under 46 inches
at the withers. It may hence be assumed that Shetland and other small
breeds are not directly descended from pigmy wild races, but are the
dwarfed descendants of one or more small varieties or breeds which had
long lived under domestication.
A consideration of pigmy races makes it evident that dwarfing may be
either equal or unequal, that it may result in the formation of a
miniature having all the leading traits of the large race to which it
belongs, or give rise to a pigmy variety in which certain parts are
more dwarfed than others. In some small strains of dogs the relative
proportion of all the parts are practically the same as in large
strains, but sometimes in a small strain not only are the limbs more
dwarfed than the trunk but certain parts of the limbs are more reduced
than others. An example of unequal or disproportional dwarfing we have
in the dachshund. In this breed the dwarfing has been carried further
in the legs than in the body, and in the forearm than in the foot. In a
normally constructed small hound in which the length of the body is 390
mm., the length from the elbow to the ground is 215 mm., from the elbow
to the wrist 145 mm., and from the wrist to the end of the longest
toe 95 mm. But in a typical dachshund with a body of approximately the
same size (390 mm.) the length from the elbow to the ground is only 137
mm., the distance from the elbow to the wrist being 95 mm. and from
the wrist to the end of the longest toe 90 mm.—_i.e._, in a dachshund,
while the foot may only be reduced 5 mm., the reduction in the forearm
may amount to 50 mm. (2 inches).
In the case of pigmy horses are the proportions of their normal
ancestors invariably retained, or are the legs in some cases more
dwarfed than the trunk, and as in the dachshund is the dwarfing greater
in one part of the limb than in another? In Java ponies I have had
under observation for some years the head and limbs bear practically
the same relation to the body as in well-proportioned Arabs.
For example, in a 41-inch Java mare (fig. 1) the height at the withers,
as in typical desert Arabs, is 2·7 times the length of the head,
and the neck and limbs are relatively as long as in Arabs and other
slender-limbed breeds.
But while in tropical islands the relative proportion of the various
parts of pigmy horses may be maintained, in islands near the Arctic
Circle dwarfing may imply undue shortening of the limbs, and that
certain parts of the limb are more reduced than others.
A striking instance of unequal reduction we have in the Udganger or
Nordlands ponies, once common in Bodo, a small island within the Arctic
Circle off the coast of Norway. Fig. 2 shows that the limbs of the Bodo
ponies were relatively nearly as much dwarfed as in a dachshund, while
fig. 3 shows that Iceland ponies of the Nordlands type may closely
agree in conformation with Exmoor and other well-built ponies of the
Celtic race.
Very little is known about the make and size of the horses which
first reached Shetland. The evidence as far as it goes indicates that
they belonged to small varieties measuring from 11 to 12 hands at
the withers. If horses were introduced from Norway during the Norse
occupation, the majority of them would in all probability belong to
the Nordlands race—_i.e._, the race from which the modern fjordhest is
believed to have mainly sprung. Probably unequal dwarfing more or less
pronounced took place at a comparatively early period in some of the
smaller islands, while in the more fertile parts of the main island,
and in the rich island of Fetlar, the reduction in size (as in Java
ponies) would be nearly uniform. It is conceivable that some of the
unimproved ponies now living in Shetland, and also some of the improved
ponies bred and reared far from their ancestral island home, are as
well proportioned as members of the Exmoor or Welsh breeds. One must,
however, be prepared to find that not a few of the inbred pedigree
ponies have undergone unequal dwarfing, one part of the limbs, as in
the dachshund, having undergone more reduction than the adjacent parts.
_Dwarfing in Shetland Ponies of the Celtic or Riding Type._—That
well-proportioned Shetland ponies of the riding or Celtic type still
exist is suggested by the measurements of Pamela and certain other
fine-limbed pedigree ponies. Pamela (40 inches at the withers, 25
inches from elbow to ground, and 5·25 inches below the knee), in the
form and length of the head, length of the limbs and their relation to
the height at the withers, very closely agrees with the 41-inch Java
pony.
The skeletons of Shetland ponies of the riding type available for
study (viz., of Highland Chieftain, Egil, and Eric) also indicate that
in a considerable number of cases the dwarfing is uniform. Though in
many Shetland ponies the distance between the knees and the fetlocks
looks very short, the front cannon-bones may be relatively as long
as in thoroughbred race-horses. In Highland Chieftain[F1] (fig. 4)
the front cannon-bones (metacarpals) are 136 mm. long and 20 mm. wide
at the middle of the shaft; in Persimmon,[F2] the famous thoroughbred
16·2 race-horse (fig. 5), the metacarpals measure 276 mm. by 38 mm. As
Highland Chieftain measured 33 inches, and has cannon-bones measuring
136 mm., he was half the height of Persimmon, and has cannon-bones
practically half the length. In Highland Chieftain the cannon-bones
(fig. 4) are not only relatively as long as in Persimmon (fig. 5), they
bear almost exactly the same relation to the bones of the forearm and
arm as in Persimmon—the _radius_ (chief forearm bone) being relatively
only 8 mm. shorter, the _humerus_ (upper arm bone) relatively only 10
mm. longer. Nevertheless the cannon-bones of Highland Chieftain are
relatively shorter than in typical Celtic ponies. In a 33-inch Shetland
built on Celtic lines the cannon-bones should measure 142 mm., hence
it may be assumed the cannon-bones of Highland Chieftain have been
dwarfed to the extent of 6 mm. or one-quarter of an inch.
[F1] The skeleton of Highland Chieftain (a 33-inch Shetland pony bred
in Scotland) is in the American Museum of Natural History, New York;
Egil’s is in the University of Edinburgh.
[F2] The skeleton of Persimmon is in the British Museum.
The only striking difference between Highland Chieftain and a typical
12-hands Celtic pony is in the face. In modern horses, while the form
of the cranium or brain-box is nearly constant, the face varies both
in size and in its relation to the cranium. In the wild steppe horse
(_Equus przewalskii_) of Mongolia, which during part of the year
subsists on hard dry food, the jaws are so long that the length of
the face (fig. 8) is twice the width across the orbits, thus giving a
frontal index of 50; whereas in a broad-browed Iceland or Highland pony
the face may be only 1·6 times the width, which implies a frontal index
of 60. In the Celtic race (to which Highland Chieftain mainly belongs)
the normal frontal index is 54—_i.e._, the length of the face is 1·8
times the width—but, as in Highland Chieftain, the length of the face
is only 1·5 times the width, the frontal index[F3] is as high as 65.
Further, in Highland Chieftain the profile instead of being convex as
in steppe horses (fig. 8), or nearly straight as in many Exmoor ponies,
was decidedly concave or dished (fig. 4). The difference between the
profile of a Shetland pony and that of a steppe horse is brought out by
figs. 6 and 8.
[F3] The frontal index is obtained by multiplying the greatest width
above the orbits by 100, and dividing the result by the length of the
face, as measured from the alveolar point to a line connecting the
supra-orbital foramina.
In the case of Egil[F4] the dwarfing of the limbs seems to have been
more pronounced. Egil may be regarded as an unimproved 40-inch pony;
he met his death some forty years ago by falling over a cliff near
Hillswick, Shetland—_i.e._, before the Marquis of Londonderry set about
making a short-limbed strain suitable for pit work. A comparison of
the skeleton of Egil with that of an Exmoor pony in the British Museum
shows that in the northern island pony the limbs were relatively
shorter by one inch, and the face by half an inch, than in the southern
moorland pony, but, notwithstanding the shortening of the limbs, the
front cannon-bones in Egil, as in fine-limbed prehistoric races, are in
length seven times the width.
[F4] Egil (a four-year-old black stallion) belonged to Mr Anderson,
Hillswick.
As Egil probably belonged to an unimproved stock, it may be asked,
Does his skeleton lend support to the view that modern pigmy horses
reproduce, apart from their size, the characteristics of their remote
ancestors?
In Miocene, as in prehistoric times, there were light as well as heavy
horses, but in the light as well as in the heavy each limb had three
hoofs (fig. 18). In _Neohipparion_, a late Miocene three-toed horse,
about 40 inches at the withers, the skull is longer by 12 mm., and
the molar teeth are more specialised than in Egil, the 40-inch modern
island pony. In the Equidæ the cannon-bones are especially interesting;
strange as it may appear, the middle cannon-bones are relatively
longer and more slender in the extinct _Neohipparion_ than in modern
race-horses. In Egil the front cannon-bone is 175 mm. (6·75 inches)
long and 25 mm. wide; in _Neohipparion_ the corresponding bone has a
length of 210 mm. (8·25 inches)—is longer than in a 48-inch Exmoor
pony,—and is so slender that the length is nearly nine times the
width—_i.e._, relatively more slender than in desert Arabs. Further,
in _Neohipparion_ the middle metatarsal (hind cannon-bone) is as long
as the femur (thigh-bone), whereas in even the 16·2 hands race-horse
Persimmon (fig. 5) the middle metatarsal is only three-fourths the
length of the femur. But, though in the 40-inch Shetland pony the
skull and the cannon-bones are actually shorter than in the ancient
40-inch Miocene horse (_Neohipparion_), the second and fourth digits
are as rudimentary, are as much “splint” bones, in Egil as in Arabs
and thoroughbreds. There is hence no evidence of reversion in Egil,
no attempt to reproduce the second and fourth toes, which, though
shorter, were as complete in _Neohipparion_ and his three-toed
contemporaries (figs. 19 and 20) as the large functional middle toe,—in
other words, in pigmy horses there is evidence of arrested growth but
not of arrested development. In Egil, as in Highland Chieftain, there
is also evidence of arrested growth in the facial part of the skull;
the profile is concave and the frontal index high (65) as in Highland
Chieftain.
Having seen that, apart from the face, the only essential difference
between the skeleton of an unimproved Shetland and the skeleton of an
Exmoor pony is a difference in size, let us next direct attention to
the skeleton of Eric, a 36·5-inch improved pedigree pony of the riding
type, for some time in the possession of Mr Charles M. Douglas of
Auchlochan. In Eric, who died when six years old, the fore limb from
the elbow to the ground was 22 inches, the length from the point of the
hock to the ground 15·4 inches, the circumference below the knee 5·25
inches, and the width of the fore-shank 1·2 inches. All four ergots
were present, but the hind chestnuts were absent. Though the setting-on
of the tail, the somewhat rounded hindquarters and the presence of
ergots, indicated that Eric, like practically all modern Shelties,
included horses of the “forest” type amongst his ancestors, his skull,
teeth, and limbs made it evident that he mainly belonged to the Celtic
or riding type.
In Eric the face (fig. 6) is so short that the frontal index is 67, the
length being only 1·4 times the width instead of 1·8 as in 12-hands
ponies of the riding type. The length of Eric’s head when alive was 410
mm. (16¼ inches). A typical Celtic pony with a 410 mm. head measures
40 inches at the withers. Eric, though having the head of at least a
40-inch pony, only measured 36·5 inches. It may hence be assumed that,
through dwarfing, his total height was reduced by 3·5 inches.
Further, as Eric’s metacarpal (fig. 9_a_), instead of measuring 166 mm.
(the normal length in a 40-inch pony), had only a length of 143 mm.,
it follows that practically one inch of the dwarfing was due to a
reduction in the length of the cannon-bones. Moreover, as Eric actually
measured 36·5 inches, his metacarpals should have measured 152 mm.
instead of 143 mm.—143 mm. being the length in a normal pony measuring
34 inches at the withers.
Though Eric had the head and trunk of a 40-inch pony and the
metacarpals of a 34-inch pony, the metacarpals bear the same relation
to the radius and the humerus as in Persimmon—_i.e._, in Eric the
relative lengths of the different parts of the limb were maintained
(not lost, as in the dachshund) during the dwarfing process.
Although the cannon-bones in Eric had been considerably reduced in
length, they had not been reduced in width—_i.e._, they are as wide as
the metacarpals of the 40-inch Shetland pony Egil, in which the limbs
closely conform to the Celtic type. It thus appears that, in the case
of ponies, reduction in height at the withers, and especially in the
length below the knee, is not necessarily accompanied by loss of “bone.”
It was at one time the ambition of some breeders to have Shetland
ponies as small as their remote three-toed Miocene ancestors. As a
matter of fact, ponies smaller than some of the Miocene species have
long existed in Shetland. Eric, though an average-sized pony, was
at least a hand smaller than the late Miocene horse, _Protohippus
sejunctus_, in which the front cannon-bones (fig. 9_b_) were 177 mm.
long and 21 mm. wide—_i.e._, 34 mm. (1·37 inches) longer but 5 mm.
narrower than in Eric; while Seedpearl (31·75 inches at the withers)
and other still smaller living ponies have shorter limbs than the very
ancient three-toed _Mesohippus_ from the Badlands of South Dakota. But
while some Shetland ponies are actually smaller and have relatively
decidedly shorter legs than the horses which flourished long before
man appeared on the scene, they never have three toes and their teeth
are always decidedly longer if not more complex than in the most
advanced Miocene species. Hence, as already said, though in Shetland
ponies there is evidence of arrested growth, there is no evidence of
arrested development. It has been pointed out that the facial part
of the skull of Eric is so short that the frontal index is extremely
high—67 instead of 54. Even more remarkable than the shortening of the
face is the reduction in Eric of the capacity of the nasal chambers.
In new-born foals, owing to the relatively large size of the cranium,
the face is always more or less dished (fig. 7). In the case of the
wild horse of Mongolia, the increase in the size of the nasal chambers
soon gets rid of the dishing, and in course of time the nasal bones
are bulged outwards, so as to give rise to a more or less marked
“Roman-nose” (fig. 8). But in Eric and many other Shelties of the
riding or Celtic type, owing to the expansion of the nasal chambers
being prematurely arrested, the profile in the adult (fig. 6) differs
but little from that of the new-born foal (fig. 7).
_Shetland Ponies of the Cart-horse or “Forest” Type._—For want of
material nothing very definite can be said about the nature of the
dwarfing of ponies of the heavy or cart-horse type. In a typical
12-hands Celtic pony the metacarpals are 200 mm. long, 27·5 mm. wide,
but in a typical 12-hands “forest” horse the metacarpals are, on an
average, 193 mm. long and 35·1 mm. wide. An undwarfed, thick-set,
36-inch Sheltie built on the same lines as a 12-hands “forest” horse
should have metacarpals about 145 mm. in length and 26·4 mm. in width,
and should measure 5·5 inches below the knee.
The measurements available indicate that in a pedigree 36-inch Sheltie
of the “forest” type, the front cannon-bones will probably measure
137 mm. by 26·2 mm., that the circumference below the knee will be 5·5
inches, and the distance from the elbow to the ground 21·5 inches—in
Eric (36·5 inches) the length from elbow to the ground was 22·25
inches. If these figures are approximately correct, it follows that in
a 36-inch Sheltie of the cart-horse type the limbs may be at least an
inch shorter than in a dwarfed 36-inch pony of the riding type, and
that the dwarfing may be unaccompanied by any loss of “bone.”
This conclusion is supported by the measurements of Odin, a 38-inch
pony, 6 inches below the knee; of Vulcan, a 32-inch pony, 5 inches
below the knee; and of other ponies of the Londonderry type belonging
to the Ladies Hope, and also by those of Everlasting, Frederick,
and other thick-set Auchlochan ponies. For example, in Everlasting,
a 38-inch pony, the distance from the elbow to the ground is 22·75
inches, the circumference below the knee 5·5 inches, the bone being
“round,” and the shank ·5 inches broader than in the flat-boned riding
pony Eric.
In heavy horses, but especially in Shire colts, one (or more) of the
limbs has occasionally an extra digit ending in a well-formed hoof. In
a three-weeks’ horse embryo there are no rudiments of limbs; at four
weeks the limbs are represented by paddle-like structures; at five
weeks the paddles contain rudiments of three toes—miniatures of the
three toes of _Hypohippus_ (fig. 20).
In ordinary circumstances the development of the outer and inner toes
(ii. and iv.) is soon arrested, but occasionally one of these rudiments
develops into a toe as large and complete as in three-toed Miocene
horses of the “forest” type. When this happens, when in addition to the
third toe there is a toe corresponding to the human forefinger, we have
a marvellous instance of reversion.
If in the Shetland breed there is a tendency to reversion, one would
expect to find now and then extra digits in ponies of the heavy or
“forest” type. I have, however, never heard of a Shetland pony with
extra digits.
Dwarfing of the face and the reduction of the nasal chambers has
apparently been carried further in some of the miniature cart-horses
than in Eric and other flat-boned Shelties. In Jupiter,[F5] _e.g._,
the head, though wider across the orbits, is shorter than in Eric,
and decidedly more dished. Ancient horses adapted for a forest life
had face pits in front of the orbits, which probably, like the
corresponding pits in deer, lodged scent glands. Further, in ancient
“forest” horses the upper lip was probably decidedly longer and more
prehensible than in modern breeds. In broad-browed, big-boned Shetland
ponies there is no indication of a pit for a scent gland, but there is
sometimes an unusually long and decidedly mobile upper lip, which may
or may not be due to reversion.
[F5] Jupiter was a 37·5 inch “elk-nosed” pony, with a girth of 54·5
inches, rounded quarters, a low set-on tail, a complete set of
chestnuts, wide open hoofs, and six inches of “bone.”
_The Causes of the Dwarfing of Shetland Ponies._—Given sufficient food
and shelter, horses up to 15 hands—the size of the tallest prehistoric
Old World wild horse—can easily be bred and reared in both the Western
and Northern Islands of Scotland. On the other hand, large breeds
are soon dwarfed when, in addition to a limited supply of food, the
conditions during a considerable part of the year are extremely
unfavourable. If Shetland ponies have not sprung from a small wild
pigmy race, it may be safely asserted that their small size is mainly
due to isolation in small areas where they were forced to shift for
themselves under, as a rule, extremely unfavourable conditions.[F6]
Obviously the environment may play a double part. It may (1) arrest
growth by failing to provide sufficient food and shelter, and (2)
it may eliminate the individuals which, by growing beyond a certain
size, require during times of stress more food and shelter than are
available. Considerable stress has been laid by writers on the dwarfing
influence of the surroundings. It is said, _e.g._, that “horses taken
to the barren and cold islands of Shetland become gradually smaller
and hardier, like ponies, and the hair becomes thicker and longer.
Long-continued exposure to such conditions ultimately results in
the production of an animal like the Shetland pony, small in size,
extremely hardy, able to withstand the most severe winter climate, and
to subsist on a minimum of food.”[F7] It might be said that this view
is supported by experiments in the Western Islands. At the beginning
of the eighteenth century the Captain of Clanranald (who was killed in
1715 at the battle of Sheriffmuir) brought from Spain “some Spanish
horses which he settled in his principal island of South Uist. These
in a considerable degree altered and improved the horses in that and
the adjacent islands. Even in 1764, not only the form but the cool
fearless temper of the Spanish horse could be discerned in the horses
of that island.... These at that time, both in figure and disposition,
were thought the best horses observed in the Highlands, and though of
low stature were judged more valuable than any other horses of the same
size.” The descendants of the Spanish horses introduced by Clanranald
for a time increased the size of the horses in the adjacent islands.
Nevertheless, in spite of the introduction of the Spanish horses at
the beginning of the eighteenth century, and the introduction of many
south-country horses during the second half of the eighteenth century,
the Highland and Island horses at the beginning of the nineteenth
century were “sometimes only 9 and seldom 12 hands high.” Moreover,
though some of them were “of an excellent form,” with “great strength
in proportion to their size,” agile and spirited, many were “short
necked, chubby headed, and thick and flat at the withers.”[F8]
[F6] That the conditions are now and again very trying in Shetland is
proved by the death-rate among native sheep being, in some districts,
from 40 to 50 per cent. during the winter of 1912-13.
[F7] ‘Cyclopædia of American Agriculture,’ vol. iii. p. 34.
[F8] Walker’s ‘History of the Hebrides,’ vol. ii. 1808.
Evidence in support of the view that the descendants of the Spanish and
south-country horses, introduced about 1710 and after 1745, were soon
either eliminated or dwarfed, we have from Dr Johnson and others. Dr
Johnson tells us that the pony he rode in Coll was very low, and that
a bulky man on one of the native horses made “a very disproportionate
appearance,” and, after referring to the small horses of Rum, mentions
that he had heard of a yet smaller race in Barra, “of which the highest
is not above 36 inches.” Barra was one of the islands which benefited
by the introduction of Spanish horses by Clanranald.
That dwarfing may be the direct result of an inadequate supply of
nourishment during development is suggested by the condition of fœtuses
I found some years ago in a wild rabbit. The right uterine horn of
this rabbit contained four young, the left eight. The eight in the left
horn were as well developed as the four in the right horn, but only
half the size and half the weight. Evidently the amount of nourishment
available in this case was limited, and as the eight in the left horn
only received as much as the four in the right horn, they were only
half the size.
But while dwarfing may be, or appear to be, directly caused by the
environment, there are other possible causes. Sometimes the small size
of one or more members of a family or litter is due to reversion to
small ancestors. For example, in a litter of five puppies bred some
months ago (from parents in which West Highland and Mexican (Spanish?)
blood prevails) there is marked variation in size. When these pups of
mixed origin were weighed three days after birth, two males weighed
7·5 oz. each, two females 5·5 oz. each, and one male 4·5 oz. When
again weighed at the end of the twelfth week, the largest male scaled
106 oz., the smallest male 44 oz., the larger female 58 oz., and the
smaller female 46 oz. In this case the small male reproduced his small
Mexican great-grandsire, while the large males took after their West
Highland ancestors.
But dwarfs often enough turn up in old-established “pure” breeds, and
now and again a dwarf is found in an otherwise normal human family.
There is no reason for supposing that such dwarfs are the result of
reversion. Just as one of a litter of pups may prove a dwarf, one of
five or six foals, full brothers and sisters, may prove a dwarf.
It may, I think, be assumed that in the case of horses living under
natural conditions, “spontaneous variation,” without the aid of
reversion, will, as a rule, provide sufficient material to admit of a
variety being evolved well adapted in size and other respects for the
conditions which at the moment prevail.
It need hardly be pointed out that little will be gained by speculating
as to whether dwarfing is due to the direct influence of the
environment, to reversion, or to spontaneous variation.
Many breeders, more especially breeders of dogs, seem to think that
dwarfing is invariably the result of inbreeding. It is doubtless true
that the members of many recently formed pigmy breeds are closely
inbred, but it is well to bear in mind that there are closely inbred
large as well as closely inbred small breeds—that size is largely a
matter of selection—that in the case of natural races size depends
more on the surroundings and the extent of the range than on the
consanguinity.
The view that dwarfing is caused by inbreeding is insisted on by Sir
Everett Millais in a book on Rational Breeding. Sir Everett states
that, though in the case of the Shetland pony the “climate, bad food,
&c., had been a factor in reducing the size, the primary cause was
inbreeding due to isolation.”
It seems to me, however, highly probable that until artificial
selection began in earnest about thirty years ago, inbreeding had
little influence in determining the size of Shetland ponies—that
isolation had been a decidedly more potent factor than inbreeding.
Scottish red deer are decidedly smaller now than they were in Roman
times; but this is not so much due to inbreeding as to the range of
most of the herds being restricted, and to the best stags being cut
off before they have a chance of improving the herd. The Scottish deer
in New Zealand, though all descended from a few imported individuals,
instead of dwindling in size, are larger and carry finer heads than
their home-bred relatives,—the wider range and better conditions have
more than compensated for the inevitable in-and-in breeding. It is
doubtless true that in-and-in breeding sooner or later diminishes the
vigour, size, and fertility, and, in addition, restricts variation.
But under natural conditions, if the range is sufficiently extensive,
occasional reversion to vigorous ancestors will prevent dwarfing
provided there is rigid elimination of the unfit.
If Shetland ponies are the pigmy descendants of one or more ancient
races at least as tall as Exmoor and Welsh ponies, one would expect
them to increase in size when bred and reared under favourable
conditions. It has been again and again asserted that “the climate and
comparative privation of the Shetland Isles were necessary to maintain
the small stature of the ponies, and that the breed would inevitably
lose this and all other characteristics if bred away from Shetland and
under more generous conditions.”
Some of the ponies recently brought south from Shetland have increased
so much in size that, if otherwise eligible, they could not be
registered in the ‘Shetland Pony Stud-Book’—_i.e._, they are now
over 42 inches at the withers.[F9] The majority of these tall ponies,
however, are piebalds or skewbalds, which in make and other respects
resemble Iceland ponies,—if their history were traced, a piebald
Iceland pony would probably be found amongst their recent ancestors.
It is not surprising that young cross-bred Shetland ponies increase
considerably in size when grazed on rich lowland pastures, or that now
and again a pure-bred pedigree pony should grow above the recognised
standard; but these exceptions only serve to prove the rule, now
widely recognised by breeders, that pure-bred Shetlanders remain small
however favourable their surroundings. Seeing that in the majority of
pedigree ponies the dwarfing has gone so far that the metacarpals are
actually shorter than in the remote three-toed Miocene ancestors, what
is surprising is that there is not an immediate response to the stimuli
which genial surroundings and abundant food imply.
[F9] In all probability these ponies would have measured over 40 inches
had they remained in Shetland.
Some 500 years ago a female rabbit and her young were turned out on
the small island of Porto Santo near Madeira. In course of time this
island was so overrun with rabbits that it was for a time abandoned
as a settlement. As the rabbits increased in number they dwindled in
size, became reddish above and grey beneath, and lost the black marking
from the points of the ears and the tip of the tail. Some of these
Porto Santo rabbits which reached the London Zoological Gardens in 1861
reacquired the colour and markings of the common wild rabbit within
four years. The Porto Santo rabbits having recovered the ancestral
colours soon after reaching Europe, it might have been anticipated that
the Shetland pony would recover some of his lost inches when taken to
the south of England—to the area containing the remains of the 12-to
13-hands wild races from which small British breeds have mainly sprung.
There is, however, no longer any doubt that the small size is, as a
rule, maintained however favourable the surroundings. Why the Sheltie
fails to respond to the growth stimuli which favourable surroundings
so abundantly provide it is extremely difficult to explain. In the
language of the day, one can only say that the limbs have forgotten
how to grow beyond a certain size, and add that this loss of “memory”
may be the result of breeding from the smallest individuals regardless
of their consanguinity. In 1892 Mr Christopher Wilson, in a letter to
Mr Meiklejohn, then in charge of the Bressay Stud, said: “With regard
to the Shetland ponies, your great object is to keep them small....
There is no class of animal to which inbreeding can be better applied,
as all you will lose by inbreeding is size, which is what you want....
To inbreed them there is only one plan. Select your very best stallion
and put him to a certain number of mares, and then put all the good
fillies when three years old to their father; also, select your very
best mare and put her to another stallion, and go on breeding from her
to the same stallion until you have a colt, then put that colt to his
mother, and use the produce to breed from with the produce obtained
by putting the fillies above mentioned to their father.” A better
plan for fixing the size could hardly be imagined. If followed for
some years the size of the bones and muscles would doubtless be so
effectively stereotyped that, however much their “memory” was jogged by
“fresh fields and pastures new,” there would be little or no response.
Although close in-and-in breeding was undoubtedly practised, the
Shetland Pony Stud-Book indicates that the advice of the originator of
the “Sir George” strain of hackney ponies was not literally followed.
_The Ancestors of the Shetland Pony._—From pigmy horses it seems but
a step to the little “fossil” horses of bygone days. It is hence not
surprising that many are led to inquire to which particular branch of
the equine family tree the Shetland pony belongs.
Not many years ago it was said the horse tribe was at the start
represented by a primitive race about the size of a fox but with as
many hoofs as a tapir—four in front and three behind,—that in course
of time a new race arose (with three hoofs in front as well as behind)
which eventually gave rise to the one-toed ancestor of all the living
Equidæ.
Now, however, we know that in Eocene times there were several kinds or
species of four-toed “horses” from which were derived, in the Oligocene
and Miocene periods, numerous three-toed species, some of them doomed
to early extinction, others to bring forth one-toed races which in due
time produced the ancestors of the modern horses, asses, and zebras.
Hence it is now admitted that, in the past as in the present, the horse
tribe was always represented by several species, not a few of which at
times occupied the same area. It is also now admitted that the modern
domestic breeds include several wild prehistoric species among their
ancestors.
Is it possible to say which of the wild horses of prehistoric times
contributed to the making of the Shetland pony? To be in a position
to hazard an answer to this question it will be necessary to refer to
the more important links which are believed to connect modern breeds
with _Hyracotherium_, generally regarded as the remote polydactylous
ancestor of the horse family.
_Hyracotherium_ lived in the south-eastern part of England—his
remains occur in the London Clay near Herne Bay and in the Red Crag
of Suffolk—_i.e._, in deposits formed two or three or it may be six
million years ago. This ancient fossil horse—though not unlike a
long-faced fox terrier—Owen regarded as a relation of the Hyrax or
Coney of Palestine, hence the name _Hyracotherium_. Evolved in Western
Europe—perhaps in England—this primitive small-brained terrier-on-hoofs
not only wandered across Europe and Asia, but actually crossed into
America—then freely connected with north-eastern Asia—and ranged at
least as far south as New Mexico. So conservative was this small
forerunner of the great horse family that the American representative
from the Wasatch deposits only differs from the parent form in having
slightly more complex teeth. The fore and hind foot of the American
variety of _Hyracotherium_—generally known as _Eohippus_—is represented
in fig. 10, and fig. 12 gives a restoration of _Eohippus_.
Though at the beginning of the Eocene period the milk-givers were
backward and small (_Eohippus_ was probably only 12 inches at the
withers), the struggle for existence was probably keen enough. At any
rate, the European varieties of _Hyracotherium_ either died off without
leaving descendants or gave rise to odd-toed ungulates which took no
part in forming the modern Equidæ. But for the American branch of the
_Hyracotherium_ family there would have been no horses. In course of
time _Eohippus_ was supplanted by _Protorohippus_ (a 14-inch horse
longer in the limbs and with more complex teeth), which towards the
close of the Eocene period gave place to the still more specialised
_Orohippus_. It may be mentioned that _Epihippus_, a slightly modified
descendant of _Orohippus_, may have lived side by side with the remote
ancestor of the camels—a quaint even-toed ungulate about the size of a
“jack-rabbit.”
The limbs of _Orohippus_[F10] are represented in fig. 11, and a
restoration is given in fig. 13.
[F10] In the Yale collection there are five species of _Orohippus_ from
New Mexico and Wyoming.
[F11] R. S. Lull, ‘American Journ. of Science.’ 1907.
North America during Eocene times “was clad with forests in which grew
both evergreen and deciduous trees distinctly modern in character.
The moist climate gave rise to many streams and lakes, along the
shores of which grew sedgy meadows that in turn gave rise to grassy
plains.”[F11] In the following (Oligocene) period similar conditions
for a time prevailed, but later, owing to the increasing aridity,
broad meadow-lands and prairies made their appearance. The new
environment produced larger and more active flesh-eaters, fleeter
and more intelligent horses. One of the new and improved species
is _Mesohippus bairdi_, an 18-inch horse with only a splint-like
metacarpal representing the outer or fifth digit—a digit complete in
all the Eocene horses. In this as in all the other Oligocene horses
three of the four premolars, as in the recent Equidæ, resembled molars.
Small and slender-limbed, _Mesohippus bairdi_ was adapted for living
in the open, but a larger species (_Mesohippus intermedius_) might
be described as a “forest” horse,—though only 24 inches high, this
forest-dwelling form had as long cannon-bones as a 33-inch Shetland
pony of the “forest” or cart-horse type. Another American Oligocene
type (_Miohippus_) from Oregon deserves mention, not so much because
it was more specialised, but because it had a representative (probably
a descendant) in Europe known as _Anchitherium_, which in Miocene
times ranged from France to Bavaria. In this European species the last
vestiges of the first and fifth digits had apparently disappeared. The
fore limb of _Mesohippus_ is represented in fig. 18, and a restoration
is given in fig. 14.
It is impossible to say how many thousands of years are represented by
the Eocene and Oligocene deposits, but an idea of the time that has
elapsed since the beginning of the Tertiary period will be gained if
it is mentioned that “when the fox-like _Hyracotherium_ was wandering
on the marshes of Kent not only was the Himalaya non-existent, but
that along the line of its very heart—where the kiang now lives at an
elevation of from thirteen thousand to sixteen thousand feet—extended
an arm of the sea of no inconsiderable depth.”[F12]
[F12] Lydekker, ‘The Horse and its Relations,’ p. 242.
During the Miocene period the horse passed through the most interesting
phases of his evolution, his elaborate dental battery was almost
brought to perfection, and the second and fourth toes were gradually
dwarfed and hidden out of sight, not even a trace of the hoofs being
left, as in sheep, to suggest polydactylous ancestors. As already
hinted, though Europe was the birthplace of the remote ancestor of the
Equidæ, it is in the Miocene deposits of North America that we have a
record of the most important phases of their evolution. The remarkable
progress made in Miocene times was doubtless necessary to enable horses
and other grass-eaters to keep abreast of the profound changes in the
environment—the great increase of prairies in some areas, and the
upheavals which resulted in the appearance of extensive mountain ranges
in others.
The Oligocene species which proved sufficiently plastic to respond to
the new conditions varied in different directions, and gave rise to,
amongst other types, one well adapted for a forest life, and one highly
specialised for ranging far and wide over boundless prairies.
In _Hypohippus_ we have an example of a “forest” horse, in the American
_Hipparion_ (_Neohipparion_) we have a horse more specialised for a
desert life than the fleetest Arab, while in _Merychippus_ we have
a link with Oligocene species deserving attention, because, on the
one hand, it gave rise through _Neohipparion_ to the _Hipparions_,
now extinct, but once common in Europe and Asia; and because, on the
other hand, through _Protohippus_ it seems to be the ancestor of the
slender-limbed species of the “desert” or plateau type, now best
represented by Celtic and Mexican ponies.
In _Merychippus_ the orbit is complete, and the crowns of the permanent
molars are cemented as in recent horses, but the hoof bone has a cleft
at the apex (fig. 19), and in some cases there is a minute vestige of
the “splint” bone of the fifth or outer digit of the fore-foot. In fig.
11_a_, the fore-foot of _Neohipparion_, the Miocene race-horse, is
represented. Fig. 19 gives the fore-foot, and fig. 16 is a restoration
of _Merychippus_.
Hitherto _Merychippus_, through _Protohippus_ and _Pliohippus_, has
been by many regarded as the progenitor of all the modern horses, as
well as of the extinct _Hipparions_. That slender-limbed horses with
short-pillared molars are mainly descended from one or more varieties
of _Merychippus_ is possible, but it seems to me that modern breeds
with short broad cannon-bones and long-pillared molars are probably
mainly descended from browsing ancestors with limbs of the _Hypohippus_
type.
_Hypohippus_, like _Eohippus_, but unlike all the known Oligocene
horses, had in the fore limb, in addition to three complete and
functional toes, a distinct vestige of the first metacarpal—_i.e._,
of the bone which in man carries the thumb. No vestige of a first
metacarpal has ever been found in slender-limbed breeds, but once
and again a vestige of the first metacarpal occurs in coarse-limbed
breeds. The vestigial first metacarpal, taken along with other
facts, suggests, as already said, that coarse-limbed breeds include
a browsing race with limbs of the _Hypohippus_ type amongst their
ancestors. A few years ago it was assumed that _Hypohippus_, the
40-inch forest horse of Dakota and Montana, became “extinct during
the Miocene, leaving no descendants.”[F13] Now, however, it is admitted
that browsing horses possibly “identical with _Hypohippus_ of the
Miocene of America”[F14] lived in China at the beginning of the
Pliocene. Though it is inconceivable that a species with the
short-crowned teeth of _Hypohippus_ could give rise to any of our
modern breeds, it is possible that in the Pliocene of Eastern Asia
a race (with _Hypohippus_-like limbs but long-crowned molars) may be
found bearing the same relation to long, low, big-boned modern
“forest” horses that _Merychippus_ bears to fine-boned modern
plateau or desert horses.
[F13] Lull, _loc. cit._, p. 177.
[F14] Osborn, ‘Age of Mammals,’ p. 333.
The fore-foot of _Hypohippus_ is represented in fig. 20. When a toe
corresponding to the second digit of _Hypohippus_ (II. fig. 20) appears
in a modern horse it has sometimes, as in _Hypohippus_ and _Eohippus_
(I. fig. 10), a vestige of the first metacarpal at its upper. Fig. 15
is a restoration of _Hypohippus_.
_Ponies in Prehistoric Times._—During the Pleistocene period some eight
or more species of true horses and ponies inhabited North America.
Apparently before Palæolithic man reached the New World all these
American species had become extinct. About the American true horses
which, like _Hipparion_, reached and found a home in Eastern Asia,
very little is known. Some of their descendants found their way during
Pliocene times into India; others reached south-eastern Europe.
One of the Indian Pleistocene species (_E. namadicus_) from the
Narbada valley had large long-pillared molars like _E. complicatus_
of North America and _E. fossilis_ of England (fig. 22); another (_E.
sivalensis_), well represented in Pliocene deposits of the Indian
Siwaliks, is the oldest true horse about which we have definite
information. Like _Pliohippus_, _E. sivalensis_ had short-pillared
molars, but instead of measuring, like _Pliohippus_, 12 hands at the
withers, this Indian species reached, in some cases, a height of 15
hands.
Some of the Kirghiz breeds, in which the face is strongly bent
downwards on the cranium, probably include this ancient Siwalik race
amongst their ancestors. Some of the Eastern races which reached
Europe[F15] in pre-glacial times found a congenial home in Tuscany and
Umbria. Others, moving in a north-western direction, found their way
into Britain, while others crossed by one or more land connections into
North Africa. About the late Pleistocene descendants of the varieties
and species which reached Europe before the Ice Age, a considerable
amount of information has been gained from engravings and coloured
drawings on the walls of caves occupied by Palæolithic man, and from
fragments of skulls, teeth, and limb-bones found in Pleistocene
deposits. Up to the end of last century naturalists, as a rule, assumed
that the wild horses hunted during the Early Stone Age all belonged to
the same species, the so-called (_E. fossilis_), and when about 1870
Prjevalsky discovered wild horses in Mongolia, it was further assumed
that these wild herds were the descendants of _E. fossilis_, and hence
represented the wild species from which all the modern domesticated
breeds had sprung.
[F15] The horses which reached Europe in Pliocene times are usually said
to belong to one species (_E. stenonis_).
Partly from fossil teeth and limb-bones, and partly from the engravings
on the walls of caves and on pieces of horn, the conclusion was
arrived at that _E. fossilis_, the assumed common ancestor of modern
breeds, was characterised by a large coarse head, coarse limbs,
and long-pillared molars (fig. 22). Prjevalsky’s horse when first
discovered was said to be characterised by coarse limbs as well as by a
large heavy head. As it was further assumed a generation ago that all
domestic horses had long-pillared molars, and that the cannon-bones
varied with the surroundings—being short and broad in some areas, long
and narrow in others—there seemed no escape from the conclusion that
all the horses now living under domestication are descended from one
and the same wild Pleistocene ancestor.
But though in Prjevalsky’s horse the head is coarse, the limbs are
nearly as fine as in thoroughbred race-horses, and though in horses of
the Prjevalsky or steppe type the pillars of the molars are long, they
are not long in all modern horses. Moreover, though there is evidence
of the existence in Europe in prehistoric times of a species with a
coarse head and relatively fine cannon-bones, there is no evidence of
the existence of a species which combined a coarse head with short
broad cannon-bones. On the other hand, it has been ascertained that
since Miocene times there have been living side by side in Europe
big-boned and fine-boned species, and that, except by dwarfing, long
narrow cannon-bones are rarely if ever transformed into short, broad
cannon-bones.
The skulls from the Roman military station at Newstead proved
conclusively that there lived in Scotland during the first century
large and small horses with _short-pillared_ molars (fig. 23). This led
to the discovery that in Shetland and other ponies of the Celtic type,
and in Arabs and thoroughbreds of the Libyan or Siwalik type, some of
the molars have as short pillars as in _E. stenonis_ (fig. 21) of the
Val d’Arno Pliocene deposits.
The investigations of the last decade having indicated that during
the Ice Age in Europe, as in America, there were always several
species of horses living contemporaneously, an attempt must be made to
ascertain from which of the wild prehistoric species Shetland ponies
are mainly descended. In addition to steppe horses of the Prjevalsky
make and horses allied in skull, teeth, and limbs to _E. sivalensis_
of India, there were in prehistoric times large and small varieties
of browsing or forest horses, and “Celtic” and “Libyan” varieties of
slender-limbed plateau or desert horses. Although trees and plateaus
are conspicuous by their absence in the northern islands, the study
of Shetland ponies makes it evident that they have mainly sprung from
“forest” and “plateau” ancestors. Evidence of this we have in the
limbs and skull as well as in the teeth. A fairly accurate estimate of
the type to which a horse belongs, and also of its height, can often
be gained from a study of the cannon-bones. For example, in 12-hands
ponies of the “Celtic” variety the metacarpals are on an average 200
mm. long and 26·6 mm. wide at the middle of the shaft, whereas in
12-hands ponies of the “forest” type the length is on an average 193
mm. and the width 35 mm.—_i.e._, in the one case the length is 7·5
times the width, in the other only 5·5 times. In Preglacial times there
were horses in Umbria with metacarpals 190 mm. by 32 mm., and horses
with metacarpals 220 mm. by 30 mm. The 190 mm. metacarpals probably
belonged to a long, low, broad-browed 12-hands “forest” pony, while
the 220 mm. metacarpals doubtless belonged to a 13-hands fine-limbed
pony of the “desert” type. During the Glacial period horses of the
“forest” and “desert” as well as of the “steppe” type were common
all over Europe.[F16] From the “Elephant-Bed” at Brighton bones of a
12-hands “forest” horse have been recovered. Kent’s Cavern, Torquay,
in addition to the bones of a 12-hands “forest” horse, has produced
cannon-bones of the same size and width as the fine-boned 13-hands
Umbrian pony.
[F16] In the vicinity of an open-air settlement to the north of Lyons
there are rubbish-heaps said to contain the remains of over 50,000
horses, which served as food during the Solutrian period of the Stone
Age.
The “Elephant-Bed” and Kent’s Cavern small “forest” horses are best
represented to-day by the long, low, broad-browed Iceland ponies, while
the 13-hands small fine-boned race of Kent’s Cavern is best represented
by Exmoor and other ponies of the “Celtic” type—_i.e._, by ponies with
short-pillared molars, and only two of the eight callosities (chestnuts
and ergots) invariably found on typical “forest” horses. Whether modern
Shetland ponies are mainly descended from prehistoric British races
or from a Norse race of the fjord type it is impossible to say. The
Magdalenians, who occupied Kent’s Cavern while hunting the reindeer
in the south of England towards the close of the Old Stone Age, had
no domestic animals. Neither had their successors, the Azilians, who
some 8000 years ago frequented the MacArthur and other caves near Oban.
The Mediterranean race (now best represented by the Basques), which
followed in the wake of the Azilians, perhaps brought sheep or cattle
into Britain, but there is no evidence that they possessed horses.
Professor Ridgeway believes “the use of the horse by man in the British
Islands cannot be placed before the end of the Bronze or the beginning
of the Iron Age.”[F17]
[F17] ‘Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse,’ p. 92.
Through the courtesy of Sir William Turner I recently had the
opportunity of examining some horse, sheep, and dog bones found near
Grangemouth 30 feet below the surface, at the point where the Carron
joins the Forth. Two imperfect horse skulls belonged to ponies of the
“forest” type, which probably measured 12 hands at the withers, a
broken sheep skull belonged to a member of the peat or turbary race,
and a dog skull differed but little from that of a modern greyhound.
Taking into consideration the position and nature of the deposit, one
may provisionally assume that the bones belong to animals which lived
in the Forth valley about the end of the Neolithic Age,—the dog and
sheep undoubtedly lived under domestication, but whether the horses
were tame or wild is uncertain.
The next horse bones from Scotch deposits available for study consisted
of the skulls and limb-bones from Newstead, already referred to.
Several of the horses in the possession of the Roman auxiliaries who
garrisoned the Border Fort in the first century were over 15 hands, and
had the face bent downwards on the cranium as in Kirghiz horses,—in one
case the deflection is so great that the hard palate forms an angle of
nearly 20’ with the cranium (in the forest horse the face is in a line
with the cranium). In one of the bent skulls the molars have as short
pillars as in _E. stenonis_ (fig. 21) of the Italian Pliocene.[F18]
Two of the Newstead skulls belong to ponies about 12 hands high, one
to a pony, Arab-like in make, with metacarpals measuring 214 mm. by
28·8 mm.—_i.e._, to a fine-boned pony about 13 hands at the withers.
The skull and teeth of the 12-hands ponies indicate that one was about
two-thirds “forest,” the other two-thirds “Celtic”; the teeth as well
as the skull and cannon-bones of the 13-hands pony indicate that it
was nearly a pure member of the Celtic or Libyan race. According to
Dio Cassius, the Caledonians “went to war on chariots as their horses
were small and fleet.” The two 12-hands Newstead ponies were probable
members of the race which the Caledonians, Mætæ, and other tribes
of northern Britain yoked to their war chariots. It is conceivable
that soon after the Roman period ponies were taken from the mainland
of Scotland to both the Western and Northern Islands. That ponies,
resembling in make and size the small Newstead horses, reached Shetland
some centuries before the northern islands fell into the hands of
the Norsemen, is suggested by a broken pelvic bone belonging to a
pony between 11 and 12 hands, found in 1911 at the Jarlshoff broch,
Sumburgh, by Mr Charles M. Douglas. During the autumn of 1912, by
permission of Mrs Bruce of Sumburgh, and with the help of Mr Bennet
Clark, I examined a number of old hearths at Jarlshoff, probably formed
about the same time as the deposit in which Mr Douglas found the
broken pelvic bone.
[F18] Until the Newstead skulls were found it was believed horses with
short-pillared teeth became extinct thousands of years ago.
The bones of the Celtic shorthorn and of turbary sheep, the presence
of hammer-stones, pieces of pottery and scrapers, of limpet and other
shells, together with the bones and implements collected during the
excavations by the late Mr John Bruce of Sumburgh, support Mr Douglas’s
view that horses reached Shetland some centuries before the turbulent
Norse jarls, harassed by Harold Fairhair, began to settle in the
Northern and Western Islands of Scotland.
It may hence be assumed that Shetland ponies are mainly descended from
the “small and fleet” race yoked to the chariots of the Caledonians
at the battle of Mons Graupius. This ancient race (which was probably
brought to Britain during the late Celtic period) was probably
originally a blend of the slender-limbed, Arab-like ponies of the Swiss
Lake-dwellers and of a thick-set race of the Elephant-Bed type. That
the Shetland blend is an old one is suggested by the account Herodotus
gives of the horses belonging to a tribe on the north of the Danube.
This tribe (the Sigynnæ), Herodotus says, “had horses with shaggy hair,
five fingers long, all over their bodies, and which were small and
flat-nosed, and incapable of carrying men,[F19] but when yoked under a
chariot were very swift, in consequence of which the natives drove in
chariots.” Judging by this description, the chief difference between
typical modern Shelties and the small horses of Central Europe in the
time of Herodotus is a difference of size.
[F19] Herodotus probably means these small horses were incapable of
carrying men into battle.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
Fig. 1.—A 41-inch Java pony. Many East Indian ponies are said to be
saturated with Arab blood. In the Java mare figured the head and limbs
bear nearly the same relation to the trunk as in small desert Arabs.
Fig. 2.—A Norwegian Udganger pony in which the legs are relatively
nearly as short as in the dachshund. From a specimen in the Bergen
Museum.
Fig. 3.—A 42-inch pony of the Udganger type from Iceland, in which the
head and legs bear nearly the same relation to the trunk as in Exmoor
ponies. This pony is characterised by a fine head, large eyes, and
small ears; by fine limbs, sloping shoulders, and a short back; and by
the absence of the hind chestnuts and all four ergots.]
[Illustration: PLATE I.
Fig. 1. A 41-INCH JAVA PONY.
Fig. 2. A DWARFED UDGANGER PONY, NORWAY.
Fig. 3. A 42-INCH ICELAND PONY, UDGANGER TYPE.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
Fig. 4.—Skeleton of a 33-inch Shetland pony (Highland Chieftain) in
the American Museum of Natural History, New York. Though the front
cannon-bone is 1·5 inches shorter than in the three-toed Miocene horse
_Protohippus_, it has only been dwarfed about one-quarter of an inch.
From a photograph lent by Prof. H. Fairfield Osborn.
Fig. 5.—Skeleton of Persimmon, a 66-inch race-horse belonging to
the late King Edward VII. The bones of the limbs of Persimmon bear
practically the same relation to each other and to the trunk as in
Highland Chieftain, but in Persimmon the skull is relatively shorter
and the withers are relatively higher.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
Fig. 4.—Skeleton of Highland Chieftain, a 33-inch Shetland Pony.
Fig. 5.—Skeleton of Persimmon, a 66-inch Thoroughbred.]
[Illustration: PLATE III.
Fig. 6.—Side view of skull of Eric, a 36·5-inch Shetland pony of the
riding type.
Fig. 7.—Skull of a new-born foal of the Celtic or riding type.
Fig. 8.—Skull of a four-year-old Prjevalsky horse from Mongolia. In the
foal the cranium is relatively large and the face decidedly dished;
in the Sheltie the face is longer than in the foal, but less bent
downwards on the cranium and less dished; in the Prjevalsky stallion
the cranium is less globular, while the face is very long and, owing
to the bulging outwards of the nasals, “Roman-nosed.” Though in some
Shetland ponies the face is long, the wild horse now found in Mongolia
seems to have contributed little to the making of the modern Sheltie.
DIMENSIONS OF SKULLS.
Total Facial Frontal Frontal
length. length. width. index.
mm. mm. mm.
Prjevalsky, 518 371 187 50
Eric, 383 252 170 67
Foal at birth, 255 166 100 60
Iceland pony, “forest” type, 506 336 228 61
Pony, “Celtic” type, 494 338 185 54]
[Illustration: PLATE III.
Fig. 6.—Skull of Eric, a 36·5-inch Shetland Pony.
Fig. 7.—Skull of a new-born foal, Celtic type.
Fig. 8.—Skull of a wild Prjevalsky horse, from Mongolia.]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
Fig. 9_a_. Middle metacarpal (front cannon-bone) of Eric, a 36·5-inch
Shetland pony; length, 143 mm. (5·6 inches), width at middle of shaft,
26 mm. In Eric the reduction or dwarfing of the front cannon-bones is
estimated at 1 inch. Half nat. size.
Fig. 9_b_. Middle metacarpal of the Miocene 3-toed (36-inch?) horse
_Protohippus sejunctus_; length, 177 mm. (6·9 inches), width, 21
mm.—_i.e._, 1·3 inches longer than in Eric. Half nat. size.
Fig. 9_c_. Middle metacarpal of _Hypohippus_, the (40-inch?) Miocene
3-toed “forest” horse of Montana and South Dakota; length, 215 mm. (8·4
inches), width, 22 mm.—_i.e._, 2·8 inches longer than in Eric. Half
nat. size.
Fig. 10. Bones of fore and hind foot (half nat. size) of _Eohippus_
(fig. 12). After Marsh.
Fig. 11. Bones of fore and hind foot (half nat. size) of _Orohippus_
(fig. 13). After Marsh.
Fig. 11_a_. Bones of the three front toes (II., III., and IV.) of
_Neohipparion_, the 10-hands American Miocene desert horse with
deer-like limbs. In this ancient race-horse the II. and IV. toes are
very much shorter than in _Hypohippus_ (fig. 20), a late Miocene
“forest” horse.
Fig. 11_b_. Engraving of a small-headed horse made during the Early
Stone Age in the Combarelles Cave, France. The short face, small ear,
and flowing mane suggest a race to which Shelties may be related.
One-fourth nat. size.]
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
Cannon-bones, half nat. size.
Fig. 9_a_.
Eric.
Fig. 9_b_.
_Protohippus._
Fig. 9_c_.
_Hypohippus._
Fig. 10.—Fore and hind foot, _Eohippus_, ½ nat. size.
Fig. 11.—Fore and hind foot, _Orohippus_, ½ nat. size.
Fig. 11_a_.
Forefoot, _Neohipparion_, ¼ nat. size.
Fig. 11_b_.—Engraving of a small-headed horse.]
[Illustration: PLATE V.
Fig. 12.—Restoration of _Eohippus_, the American _Hyracotherium_, size
about 12 inches. See fig. 10.
Fig. 13.—_Orohippus_, a late Eocene four-toed horse, size about 16
inches. See fig. 11.
Fig. 14.—_Mesohippus_, an Oligocene horse about 24 inches. In some of
the three-toed Oligocene horses the cannon-bones were as long as in a
32-inch Shetland pony. See fig 18.
Fig. 15.—_Hypohippus_, a three-toed Miocene “forest” horse, with
the II. and IV. toes long and functional. In 40-inch specimens of
_Hypohippus_ the cannon-bones were 2·5 inches longer than in some
40-inch Shetland ponies. See figs. 9 and 20.
Fig. 16.—_Merychippus_, a 9-hands three-toed Miocene horse.
_Protohippus_ (a possible ancestor of modern fine-limbed breeds) and
the extinct _Hipparions_ seem to have been derived from _Merychippus_.
Fig. 17.—A 33-inch Shetland pony. In modern Shelties the legs are
relatively shorter than in the three-toed horses of the later Miocene
deposits. Shetland ponies have probably partly sprung from ancestors
allied to _Merychippus_ and partly from ancestors with limbs of the
_Hypohippus_ type.
Figs. 12 to 16 after Osborn and Lull.]
[Illustration: PLATE V.
Fig. 16.—_Merychippus_, 36 inches.
Fig. 12.—_Eohippus_, 12 inches.
Fig. 15.—_Hypohippus_, 40 inches.
Fig. 14.—_Mesohippus_, 24 inches.
Fig. 13.—_Orohippus_, 16 inches.
Fig. 17.—Shetland, 33 inches.
All the figures one-thirtieth nat. size.]
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
Fig. 18.—Skeleton of fore-foot of _Mesohippus_. The II., III., and IV.
digits are complete, the V. is represented by the upper end of the
metacarpal. Oligocene of America. After Marsh.
Fig. 19.—Forefoot of _Merychippus_ (or _Protohippus_). Digits II. and
IV. shorter than in fig. 18, and the vestige of digit V. very small or
absent. American Miocene. After specimen in American Museum of Natural
History.
Fig. 20.—Forefoot of _Hypohippus_, the Miocene “forest” horse. Digits
II. and IV. long as in _Mesohippus_, digits I. and IV. represented by
small “splints” not seen in figure. After specimen in American Museum
of Natural History.
Fig. 21.—Upper molar, _E. stenonis_, natural size. The internal pillar
(p) is only one-third the length of the grinding surface of the crown.
Pliocene. After Boule.
Fig. 22.—Upper molar, _E. fossilis_, natural size. The internal pillar
(p) is more than half the length of the grinding surface of crown.
Pleistocene. Kent’s Cavern, Devonshire. After Owen.
Fig. 23.—Premolar and molars (natural size) of a small mediæval? horse
from Aberdour, Aberdeenshire. The internal pillars are short. Small
horses with short-pillared teeth have lived in Europe since the end
of the Pliocene. In the 36·5-inch Shetland pony Eric the molars very
closely agree with those figured. From specimens received from Prof.
Arthur Thomson, Aberdeen.
Fig. 24.—Premolar and molars of a small horse from the Roman Fort,
Newstead. The pillars are long, as in _E. robustus_ of Solutrè and
other small Pleistocene horses of Europe; as in the 11-hands _E. tau_
of the Mexican Pleistocene; and as in Shetland ponies of the “forest”
or Londonderry type.]
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
Fig. 21.
Fig. 22.
Fig. 23.
Fig. 24.
Fig. 18.
_Mesohippus._
Fig. 19.
_Merychippus._
Fig. 20.
_Hypohippus._]
NOTES.
1 Quoted in R. Holinshed, ‘The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of
England, Scotland, and Ireland,’ 1577. Description of Scotland, pp. 21,
22; confirmed by R. Colt Hoare, ‘History of Ancient Wiltshire,’ Roman
Era, 1812, vol. ii. p. 11.
2 Quoted by C. Hamilton Smith, ‘The Naturalist’s Library,’ 1873, vol.
xii. p. 120. But the author does not indicate to which St Austin he
refers, nor does he give any clue to the quotation, which we have been
unable to verify.
3 ‘A Compendious History of the Goths, Swedes, and Vandals and other
Northern Nations,’ written by Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala and
Metropolitan of Sweden, Eng. trans., 1658, Book II., p. 28.
4 Olaus Magnus, _loc. cit._, Book XXIII., p. 174.
5 Gervase Markham, ‘Cavalarice or the English Horseman,’ 1607, Book I.,
p. 16.
6 G. Vigfüsson and F. York Powell, ‘Corpus Poeticum Boreale,’ 1883. W.
Wagner, ‘Asgard and the Gods,’ trans. M. W. Macdowall, 2nd ed., 1882.
7 R. Tudor, ‘The Orkneys and Shetlands,’ 1883, pp. 46, 47.
8 ‘Orkneyinga Saga,’ trans. J. A. Hjaltalin and G. Goudie, 1873, p. 150.
9 Paz Salas, ‘La Felicisima Armada,’ Lisbon, 1588.
10 ‘Certeine Advertisements out of Ireland,’ 1588. Collected tracts on
the Armada, British Museum.
11 W. Sheardown, ‘Doncaster Races, Historical Notices,’ &c., 1861, vol.
ii. p. 3.
12 J. Cossar Ewart, “The Multiple Origin of Horses and Ponies;”
‘Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society,’ 1904.
13 W. Ridgeway, ‘The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse,’
1905.
14 Ubaldini, ‘Descrittioni del Regno di Scotia,’ 1568, Eng. trans.,
1829, p. 63; Edinburgh Bannatyne Club.
15 “Descriptio Insularum Orchadiarum per me Jo Ben, ibidem coletem in
Anno 1529.” Macfarlane’s ‘Geographical Collection,’ 1908, vol. iii.
p. 304; Scottish History Society.
16 “Oppressions of the 16th Century in the Islands of Orkney and
Shetland, from original Documents;” Maitland Club Miscellany, 1859, p.
68.
17 Matthew Mackaile, “Short relation of the most considerable things in
Orkney,” 1614; G. Barry, ‘History of Orkney,’ 1808, vol. xi. p. 456.
18 “Acts and Statutes of the Lawting Sheriff and Justice Courts of
Orkney and Zetland,” 1617; Maitland Club Miscellany, 1840, p. 69.
19 _Ibid._, p. 69.
20 “A Description of the Islands of Shetland, &c., by Captain John
Smith, who was imployed there by the Earle of Pembrock in the year
1633, and stayed a whole Twelve Month there;” Scottish History Society,
1908, p. 65.
21 ‘A General Geographical Description of Zetland,’ by Hugh Leigh,
minister of the Gospel in Brassie and Burs, through John Marr; no
date—probable c. 1670; Scottish History Society, 1908, p. 250.
22 Thomas Kirke, ‘An account of a Tour in Scotland,’ 1677; edited by P.
Hume Brown, 1842, p. 32.
23 J. Wallace, ‘A Description of the Isles of Orkney,’ 1693, ed. 1883,
p. 16.
24 J. Brand, ‘A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland Firth,
and Caithness;’ Edinburgh, 1701, pp. 77-79. Brand was one of the
ministers sent as a commission in 1700 by the General Assembly “to
visit and order the Churches there.”
25 ‘A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland.’ To which is
added ‘A Brief Description of the Isles of Orkney and Shetland,’ by Wm.
Martin, Gent, 1703, p. 377. Martin’s statement is perilously like a
copy of Brand’s, but he certainly did visit Shetland.
26 ‘Shetland Pony Stud-Book,’ vol. i. p. xl.
27 _E.g._, T. Gifford, ‘Historical Description of Zetland,’ 1733, pp.
22, 23, 26, 98. D. Edmonstone, ‘A View of the Ancient and Present State
of the Zetland Isles,’ Edinburgh, 1809, vol. i. p. 226; vol. ii. p.
206. G. Sinclair, ‘A General View of the Agriculture of the Central
Highlands of Scotland’ (Shetland Isles), 1794, p. 247.
28 ‘An Exact and Authentic Account of the greatest White Herring
Fishery in Scotland, carried on yearly in the Island of Zetland by
the Dutch only.’ To which is prefixed ‘A Description of the Island
by a Gentleman who resided Five Years on the Island,’ London, 1750.
Tracts on Orkney and Shetland, 1750-1801, p. 8; Library of Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland.
29 “Observations on the Islands of Shetland,” 1801; Highland Society of
Scotland’s publications, vol. ii. p. 7.
30 T. Gifford, ‘Historical Description of the Zetland Islands,’ 1733,
ed. 1879, p. 22.
31 Highland Society Report, _loc. cit._
32 ‘Statistical Account of Shetland,’ 1841, Section “Unst,” by John
and James Ingram, p. 45.
33 ‘The Rider and Driver’: New York, December 1899.
34 James Mill’s Diary, 1740-1803, ed. 1889; Scottish History Society,
vol. v. p. 86.
35 H. H. Dixon (“The Druid”), ‘Field and Fern,’ 1865, pp. 29, 30.
36 H. H. Dixon, _loc. cit._, pp. 12-15.
37 H. H. Dixon, _loc. cit._, p. 12.
38 James Fea, ‘Considerations on the Fisheries in the Scotch Islands,’
1787, p. 86.
39 A. Edmonstone, _loc. cit._, vol. ii. p. 42.
40 S. Hibbert, ‘A Description of the Shetland Islands’ (date?), ed.
1891, p. 157.
41 S. Hibbert, _loc. cit._, pp. 179, 180.
42 R. Cowie, ‘Shetland and its Inhabitants,’ ed. 1874, p. 181.
43 Gifford, _loc. cit._, pp. 76, 77.
44 H. H. Dixon, _loc. cit._, p. 37.
45 Cowie, _loc. cit._, p. 191.
46 ‘Encyclopædia of Agriculture,’ edited by Green and Young, p. 497;
Article on Strangles.
47 _Ibid._, p. 189; Article on Parasites.
48 See Mr Brydon’s admirable Introductory Article in the ‘Shetland Pony
Stud-Book,’ vol. i. pp. xxxvii-xli.
49 _Ibid._
50 Sheriff and Stewart Court Books of Zetland, 1749, at Lerwick.
51 In A. Z.’s collection of documents relating to Shetland, in the
Library of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
52 R. Tudor, ‘The Orkneys and Shetland,’ 1883, p. 125, a quotation from
Campbell’s ‘Great White Fishery,’ 2nd ed., 1753.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
Transcriber’s Notes
The changes are as follows:
Page 3—Heards changed to Herds.
Page 4—ROCK DRAWING changed to ROCK-DRAWING.
Page 5—present day changed to present-day.
Page 55—pony-breeders changed to pony breeders.
Page 63—pit pony changed to pit-pony.
Page 104—they’l changed to they’ll.
Page 104—Proprietors of Punch. changed to Proprietors of ‘Punch.’
Page 124—one quarter changed to one-quarter.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Shetland Pony" ***
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