ingly remote, though comparatively recent, divers varieties have branched off accidentally from the primary species, which, by accident or design, by circumstances of climate, or by care and cultivation, have been first rendered permanent.
It is remarkable and significant that all the most distinct breeds of ponies, with which we are acquainted, are still to be found, and appear to have been originated in extreme latitudes either of heat or cold; latitudes to which the horse does not seem to be indigenous; to which he has, according to all natural probabilities, been imported; and in which one would naturally expect him to degenerate, at least in size. It follows, if this view be correct, that at the time when the Greek and Latin languages prevailed, ponies, which were then possibly in progress of formation in regions beyond the ken of early civilization, in the lands which are laid down on the maps of "the world known to the ancients" as countries uninhabitable on account of heat or of cold, and in which distinct ponies do now exist, had not yet been brought at all to the knowledge of the civilized world, or, if at all, so rarely as to be regarded as accidental dwarfs and monstrosities, rather than a distinct breed.
Now, of European ponies, the most clearly distinct types are those of the Shetland Isles, of Scotland, in the northern parts of Iceland, and of Sweden. There are also ponies, somewhat similar to those of Scotland, in Wales, and others in the New Forest, on the south-western coast of England, which seem referable to a cross of the same pony with some horse of higher blood. On the whole, it seems likely that the Shetland, Scottish, Welch, Swedish and Icelandic pony is one and the same animal, as to its origin or original mode of production, slightly influenced perhaps by the original type of the horse of which it is a pattern, diminished in
