error of an owner, which has allowed a colt to be deprived of his sex, whose after qualities proved him to be eminently worthy and preëminently adapted to become the father of a noble line. Who, for instance, but must regret that St. Nicholas, that noble specimen of a race-horse, perhaps the best now running on American soil, should be a gelding, and incapable of transmitting his blood and his honors to posterity?
Now, the points of the peculiar breed known as the Percheron Normans are these: First, they are considerably taller than the Canadian horses, among which, it is believed, the Percheron blood is still to be found, though degenerated in stature, from cold, exposure, and ill-usage. Their standard is probably from fourteen and a half to fifteen and a half hands, the latter height, however, being as much above the average, perhaps, as sixteen hands is above that of ordinary horses. Secondly, they are very short in the saddle-place, and comparatively long below; they are well ribbed-up and round-barreled, instead of having the flat sides and sway backs which are the most defective points of many of the Canadians; they have not the heavy head and extremely short, thick neck of the old Norman horse, and many of his descendants on this side of the ocean; but, on the contrary, have the head short, with the genuine Arabian breadth of brow and hollow of the profile between the eyes and nostrils, which is often called the basin face; nor are their heads thicker, especially at the setting-on place, nor the necks, which are well arched and sufficiently long, heavier or more massive than corresponds well with the general stoutness of their frame. Their legs are particularly short from the knees and hocks downward; nor, though heavily haired, have they such shaggy fetlocks and feet as the larger Normans or Canadians, while they have the unyielding, iron-like
