was 43 in. at six months, and is now (January 12th) 43½ in.; the circumference of the knee being 9½ in., and the fore-shank 5½ in. Though Heckla has always carried a heavy coat, and is dark in colour with white tips to her ears, she generally agrees with Romulus in her build and markings; but her action is freer, and more like that of a hackney than a Zebra. She promises to be quite as large and as active as Romulus, and more able than Romulus to withstand cold and to flourish under adverse circumstances.
The length of the head and the shortness of the neck suggest that the Iceland ponies belong to a different race than the black Oriental-looking West Highland ponies. They may be direct descendents of the Horses hunted by the men of the Reindeer Period. Their ancestors may have gradually worked their way northwards with the Tundra fauna which then as now lived near the edge of the ice. If Heckla owes her dark colour to reversion, it may be inferred her ancestors were of a mouse-dun colour.
It is too soon to offer any opinion as to whether Romulus or any of the Zebra-mare hybrids will prove fertile or specially useful either at home or abroad, and it is equally impossible to say whether they will withstand the African Tsetse fly, or have better constitutions than either ordinary mules or Asses, but this much may be said, they all seem very hardy. Romulus has been in perfect health from the first, as indeed has been his Zebra sire, while nearly all my mares and Horses have had colds and other ailments. Quite recently the four hybrid foals and three ordinary foals have been suffering from the presence of Strongylus armata. One of the pure-bred foals (Mulatto's second foal to an Arab Horse) died from the effects of the parasite on the 1st of January, and a thoroughbred foal has been reduced almost to a skeleton; but the four young hybrids, though no longer so bright or in so good condition, are evidently rapidly recovering, and will, I trust, be soon all right again.
The editor of the 'Scottish Farmer' believes Romulus "will be invaluable for driving or riding on account of his hardiness," and he has stated that all the hybrids "have feet and legs like whalebone, with the kind of pasterns that Clydesdale men fancy."[1]
- ↑ 'Scottish Farmer,' Nov. 27, 1897.
