kill in
the development of the lower species.

With the advance in the use of firearms the value of the Norman horse
in the art of war rapidly diminished. This breed, however, has, with
slight modifications, survived, and is extensively used for draught
purposes where strength at the sacrifice of speed is demanded. It is a
curious fact that the creatures which now draw the beer wagons of
London often afford the nearest living successors in form to the
horses which bore the mediaeval knights. It is an ignoble change, but
we must be grateful for any accident which has preserved to us, though
in a somewhat degraded form, this noblest product of the breeder's
art, which, even as much as the valor of our ancestors, won success
for our Teutonic folk in their great struggle with Islam. A tincture
of this Norman blood, perhaps the firmest fixed in the species of any
variety, pervades many other strains most valuable in our arts. The
best of our artillery horses, particularly those set next the wheels,
are generally in part Norman. In the well-known American Morgan, the
swiftest and strongest of our harnessed forms, the observant eye
detects indications of this masterful blood.

The Norman strains of horses retain certain interesting indications of
their ancient lineage and occupation. As appears to be common with old
breeds, the stock is readily maintained. It breeds true to its
ancestry, with little tendency to those aberrations so common in the
newly instituted varieties. When crossed with other strains, the
effect of the intermixture of this strong blood is distinctly
traceable for many generations. In their mental habits these creatures
still appear to show something of the effects of their old use in war;
it is a valiant race, less given to insane fear than other strains,
and, even under excitement, more controllable than the most of their
kindred. So far as I have been able to learn, they seem singularly
free from those wild panics which are so common among our ordinary
horses. It does not seem to me fanciful to suppose that these
qualities were bred in the stock during the centuries of experience
with the confusion of battle-fields and tournaments.

[Illustration: Exercising the Thoroughbreds]

The horse, in common with the other domesticated animals varying
readily in the hands of the breeder, undergoes a certain spontaneous
change which in a way corresponds to the physiography of the region in
which it is bred. At