THE STUPID HORSE.
A very hot discussion that, I understand, has spread even to America has been stirred by the aspersions cast at the intelligence of the horse in a recent and most admirable book by Mrs. Pitt. People love their horses as they love no other animal except the dog, and come to believe that they are in intellectual touch with their mounts. An old farmer and famous breeder of the Shire horse used to say of a favourite mare; " She can do everything but talk." We are told that hunters know hunting days, that their sense of direction is invincible, that they can learn to undo complicated latches, that—in the show ring—they can pick out particular letters, and so spell out words. Let us think nobly of the horse, that friend of man ; but most horsemen will agree that the fox is a much cleverer animal than the hunter, and that most of the horse's intellectual achievements come by way of physical sensitive- ness. The animal is as timid as the fox, for example, is brave but timidity is a great agent in docility ; and if the horse k short of intelligence it is strong in memory. But horses diffri. greatly. I know one, and one only, who delights, vicariously. in the game of shooting. It watches the birds and trots directly as a retriever to the fallen pheasant. Could it he taught to retrieve ?
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