ey are five years old. Experience shows that the animal can subsist
on a great variety of diet, being in this regard surpassed only by its
humbler kinsman the donkey, and by the goats. There are few fields so
lean that they will not maintain serviceable horses. They do well alike
in mountain pastures and amid the herbage of the moistest plainland.

The mental peculiarities of the horse are much less characteristic than
its physical. It is indeed the common opinion, among those who do not
know the animal well, that it is endowed with much sagacity, but no
experienced and careful observer is likely to maintain this opinion.
All such students find the intelligence of the horse to be very
limited. It requires but little observation to show that the creature
observes quickly, and in some way classifies the objects with which it
comes in contact. The fear aroused in it by unknown things makes this
feature of attention to the surrounding world very evident. Almost all
these animals retain a tolerably distinct memory of the roads which
they have traversed, even if they have passed over them but a few
times. The studies which I have made on this point show me that the
average horse will be able to return on a road which it has traversed
a few hours before, with less risk of blundering than an ordinary
driver. Some well-endowed animals can remember as many as a dozen
turnings in a path over which they have journeyed three or four times.
It seems almost certain that their guidance in these movements is not
at all effected by the sense of smell, but is due to a distinct memory
of the detailed features of the country.

[Illustration: Belgian Fisherman's Horse]

Good as is the horse's memory, it is difficult to organize its actions
on that basis. Only in rare cases and with much labor can he be taught
to execute movements that are at all complicated. Fire-engine horses
may be trained of their own will to step into the position where they
are to be attached to the carriage. Some artillery horses will, as I
have noticed, associate the sound of the bugle with the resulting
movements of the guns and take the appropriate positions, where they
may be out of danger in the rapid swinging of the teams and
carriages. It is partly because of this training received by
disciplined artillery horses, that it seems to many experienced
officers not worth while to have militia companies in this arm, who
have to manoeuvre with animals untrained for t