nus, a nag or pad, mannulus; and in Greek, from hippos, hipparion; and to all these diminutives, the primary meaning of which is, a foal or young, and, because young, small horse, the lexicographers have attached the interpretation pony. It is, at least, doubtful whether the diminutives mentioned ever bore that sense; the immature young of the horse and the adult pony, which, properly speaking, cannot even be termed a little or small horse, since it is not in its nature ever to become, or to produce by generation, a large horse, but to produce and reproduce itself, like to like, as is the case with any other distinct species of the same family. In corroboration of which view, it is well to remark, that there are several races or varieties of ponies, peculiar to various parts of Europe, Asia, and, more recently, of America, in all respects as distinct and peculiar as any of the families of the horse, such as the Norman, Flemish, Cleveland Bay, Suffolk Punch or thorough-bred, and which will no more, when bred like dam to like sire, produce a young one of any other family, still less of the full-sized horse, than will any of the horse families named above. The pony, therefore, is by no means to be regarded as a dwarf horse—since full-sized and healthy horses never produce ponies, although they may produce rickety, small-sized and defective colts or fillies; nor do ponies, as above stated, ever produce full sized horses, which would occasionally be the case, especially in the former instance, were they accidental monstrosities, and not a distinct race.
In what manner the pony was originally produced, in its primary form, or subsequently established in all, or any one, of its self-reproducing varieties, is impossible to decide, and useless to speculate. It is evident and certain that once, at a vastly remote period, they all arose from a single type of each species; but that, at periods still exceed-
