Page:Hints to Horse-keepers.djvu/94

86 Spiletta, the mother of Eclipse. But not only is it very certain that the Grey Eagle and Wagner blood is wasted to no purpose by this prostitution to vile uses, in giving the qualities of blood to the mules, but it is even questionable whether two stout, sound, active Canadians, or Normans, would not have thrown better foals to the same jack than these noble mares, thus sadly misapplied. On the other hand, if we are breeding hinnies, we want the very best stallion we can find, in blood and bone, so that he be not disproportionably large; while in the female ass, we only require soundness, and sufficient size to render her roomy enough to contain a fœtus so much larger than her own natural progeny, as the hinny foal is like to be. But as no one breeds hinnies or is likely to do so, this side of the question is worthy of no farther consideration, and with a few words more we quit it altogether. It is generally asserted that the hinny has been tried and found nearly a worthless animal, though admitted to be a beautiful one. He has only been bred occasionally in Spain, since the great decline in the number and quality of the male asses, and of mules, generally, from the want of male asses,—arising from the frightful consumption of those animals during the Peninsular war,—and the subsequent incessant civil wars which have convulsed that unhappy country, has rendered it necessary to supply their want. We are not inclined to adopt this assertion. We believe that the hinny, so far from being a worthless animal, is as good as he is handsome, and superior to the mule for the uses for which he is fitted,—that is, for a saddle animal. But being inferior to the horse as a saddle animal, and inferior to the mule as a beast of draft or burden, in which respect alone the latter can compete with the horse, he has no special place of his own; and, therefore, it having been worth no one's while to cultivate hinnies, they have fallen