Horses

As a god to horses I was never quite a success, however hard I tried to live up to a difficult situation. I attempted, for example, to learn about my horses from scientific books, yet found the scientific writer rather trying. He calls an animal who never injured him by such a name as Pachynolophus. This may be safe enough behind the animal's back, provided the philosopher makes quite sure that it is really and truly extinct. But suppose he met one, would he call it a perissodactylic ungulate to its face? Not at all! He would shin up a tree and use worse language than that.

So if the Reader finds me ignorant, I beg him to lay the blame on men of science who have dug up dead languages to make them a trade jargon lest any education should reach the vulgar.

In his "Tropical Light," Surgeon General Woodruff, of the U.S. Army, makes no mention of horses, but opens up a new field of thought. Professor William Ridgeway, in his "Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse," commands the respect of every horseman by his researches in history. Professor Cossar Ewart, by far the greatest living authority on hippology, has, apart from the teaching of his books, most generously granted me his private criticism. For the rest, burning my books behind me, I have ventured to write about horses just because I love them. An old rough-neck of the American ranges, who, living with horses, has tried to understand them, sets down a few ideas which may be of use to horsemen.