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Apart from these possible sources of an actual Oriental cross in the Shetland pony, there remains the possibility that the original pony of Celtic Shetland was itself similar in type and origin to the Oriental horse, and was, in fact, derived from the same stock which, in other conditions, has given rise to the Arab and the thoroughbred. The investigations of Professor Cossar Ewart and Mr Ridgeway point to the strong probability of a triple origin of the horse as it is known to history; and the fact that the Shetland pony, as we have it to-day, is sometimes of a purely Scandinavian type, sometimes of an Oriental type, may perhaps be explained by regarding it as a composite of two distinct races, one having a common origin with the Oriental horse, and the other being identical with the Scandinavian pony. Force is lent to this explanation by the fact that the pony depicted on the pre-Scandinavian Bressay Stone is wholly different in type and character from those represented in Scandinavian rock-drawings, and much more resembles the Oriental horse, with a high carriage and fine type of head, and a short back.

Whatever its earlier history may be, the Shetland pony begins to emerge in definite records during the sixteenth century. Ubaldini wrote in 1568--"Their horses are very small and tiny in stature, not bigger than asses, nevertheless they are very strong in endurance." In the same year Jo. Ben. speaks of "alia Insula inculta nomine Auskerrie ubi equi ferocissimi sunt." These "very wild" horses of the Auskerrie are without doubt progenitors of the Shetland pony of to-day.

In 1576 we find the use of horses by the laird matter of dispute in Shetland. "The Parochinaris of Wais ... deponis that quhen the Laird come throw their parochin, giff the worst boy that was in his companie got not ane horse to ride upon, the Laird wold gar thame that refusit pay 40 babeis thairfair of Zetland payment." In 1614 it is recorded by Mackaile that "the horses are little in Orkney"; while at the same period we have an Act to restrain the grazing of "wyld horsis"; and shortly afterwards, in 1628, an Act "anent ryding and cutting of other men's horsis taillis."

Within a few years after this the Shetland pony is clearly identified; for Captain John Smith says in 1633: "Their Horses, which they called Shelties, some of which I have seen, are little bigger than Asses, but very durable."

From this date onwards we have a continuous record of the pony, growing in definiteness as time goes on. "The horses," says the Rev. Hugh Leigh in 1650, "are of a little size and excellent mettell: for one of them will easily carry a man or woman 20 miles a day; and they will live till they be 20 or 30 years of age though they be never stabled summer or winter." Travellers comment on its small size, its strength, and its excellence. Thomas Kirke, in his diary, reports a visit to "Burra's" house . "We dined before we went away, having been very well treated, and at our departure he bestowed a little Shetland horse upon us, so low that I could easily stand on the ground with the horse under me." The Orkney horses in 1693 are, according to Wallace, "little yet strong and well mettald, most of which they get from Zetland, and are called Shelties."

In 1701 we have a full and clear description by Brand which places beyond doubt the fact that the pony whose history we have traced from the vague suggestions of earlier times is the Shetland pony as we have it now.

"I think the kine and sheep are of a greater size than they are in Orkney, though their horses be of a less; they have a sort of little horses called shelties, than which no other are to be had if not brought hither from other places; they are of a less size than the Orkney horses, for some will be but nine, others ten nives or handbreadths high, and they will be thought big horses there if eleven; and although so small yet they are full of vigour and life, and some not so high as others often prove to be the strongest, yea there are some whom an able man can lift in his arms, yet will they carry him and a woman behind him eight miles forward and as many back; summer or winter they never come into a house, but run upon the mountains in some places in flocks, and if at any time in winter the storm be so great that they are straitened for food, they will come down from the hills, when the ebb is in the sea, and eat the sea-ware , which winter storm and scarcity of fodder puts them out of case, and bringeth them so low, that they recover not their strength till about St John's mass-day, the 24th of June, when they are at their best; they will live to a considerable age, as twenty-six, twenty-eight or thirty years, and they will be good riding in twenty-four, especially they will be the more vigorous and live the longer, if they be four years old before they be put to work.

"Those of a black colour are judged to be the most durable, and the pied often prove not so good; they have been more numerous than they are now; the best of them are to be had in Souston and Eston, also they are good in Waes and Yell, these of the least size are in the Northern isles of Yell and Unst.

"The coldness of the air, the barrenness of the mountains on which they feed, and their hard usage may occasion them to keep so little, for if bigger horses be brought into the country, their kind within a little time will degenerate; and, indeed, in the present case we may see the wisdom of Providence, for their way being deep and mossy in many places, these lighter horses come through, when the greater and heavier would sink down; and they leap over ditches very nimbly, yea up and down rugged mosses, braes or hillocs with heavy riders upon them, which I could not look upon them, but with admiration, yea I have seen them climb up braes upon their knees, when otherwise they could not get the height overcome, so that our horses would be but little if at all serviceable there."

Brand's account, confirmed by Martin, completes the series of statements by which we are compelled to recognise that the Shetland pony of to-day is the lineal descendant, with or without some degree of cross-breeding, of a pony which has lived in Shetland from very early times.

The characteristic which most definitely asserts itself throughout all the descriptions, and which is displayed by the Sumburgh bones, is small size; and the significance of this characteristic is greatly increased by the fact that it remains unaffected by great changes in the conditions under which the pony is reared.

The common and obvious suggestion is that the ponies of Shetland were individually made small by the severity of the conditions under which they lived--that they were and are dwarfs stunted by starvation. But this suggestion is inconsistent with the undeniable result of experience, that the Shetland pony remains small, and indeed shows no tendency whatever to increase in size, when it is reared in Southern climates and generously nourished.

Twenty years ago even so experienced a breeder as Mr Robert Brydon wrote of the South-country studs: "I cannot help pointing out the difficulty their owners will have to contend with in keeping the size within Stud-book requirements." Experience, however, has shown this to be a wholly groundless fear. The apparent tendency of the breed in England and Scotland is not to increase but rather to diminish in size: the mainland--bred ponies are not larger but smaller than those on the Islands; and perhaps the present danger is that they may become too small for use and perfect symmetry.

The fact is that there have always been small horses in Britain--at all events in Northern Britain. The remains recently found in the Roman camp at Newstead include horse bones which indicate that the native horses there were from 11 to 13 hands in height. In Shetland there have probably never been large horses.

The size of other horses, originally larger, has been gradually increased, partly by crossing and partly by a deliberate artificial selection, until a sustained effort, forming part of a general agricultural development, has eventually produced the Clydesdale and the Shire horse of to-day. Increase of size has always, of course, been subject to the limits imposed by the available food-supply, so that while the Clydesdale has been of comparatively old standing in the Lowlands, a much smaller horse held the field until quite recently in the Highlands and in Orkney; while, within the Highland area itself, the so-called "garron," of Perthshire and the richer parts of Inverness-shire, has for its Island counterpart the smaller, harder, and more active Hebridean pony. But it is impossible to explain these variations of size and type as the direct product of liberal or scanty feeding, although it is no less impossible to disregard the limiting influence of local conditions which prescribe to each district at each period of its development the size and type of horse which can be maintained in vigour within it. Similarly the Shetland pony is not a horse reduced in size by the scarcity of herbage in Shetland. It is the horse whose type and qualities procured its survival in those Shetland conditions which prohibited any considerable increase in its size.

These same conditions fixed other characteristics as well. They prescribed and produced a degree of vigour and robustness fitted for the maintenance of life in adversity, and for the performance of feats of labour and endurance apparently impossible for so small a physical frame: the "mettall past belief" is the mark of a survivor in hard circumstances. They gave a great advantage to individuals sheltered by abundant mane and tail, and, above all, by that waterproof double coat of thick fur and long hair which alone can maintain warmth in wind and rain and mist. They favoured that docility and sweetness of temper which make the Shetland pony more truly domestic than any other horse, because they made it essential that the pony should live in intimate dependence on its owner; and these qualities of disposition find their expression in the small ear and the large soft full eye which are so characteristic of the breed.

The Shetland pony as every one knows it--small, robust, gay, shaggy, alert, strong of bone, short-eared, large-eyed--is the product of natural conditions and human needs in Shetland; and it is a definite race, established by long selection, having characteristics indelibly fixed. It has already been said that within this unity of race there remains real and very considerable variety of type--a variety hardly less great than that which we find between larger breeds of horses; and the fact that the various types do not breed true, but are interchangeable, points to a far-back mixture of races. Yet, in its widely varying developments, the pony remains a fixed breed; and so long as its racial purity is retained its virtues are ineradicable.

The Pony in Shetland.

The Shetland pony is almost more conspicuous in the simple farming economy of his own Islands than other horses are in British agriculture. He has been the constant theme of travellers and dwellers in Shetland; and their references show that he has been a dominant interest there throughout the whole known history of his home. The statements which have already been quoted are continued and corroborated up to our own day; and everywhere we find the same description of the ponies--their small size and their courage and endurance.

Typical of many accounts of them is that given by Campbell in 1750. "There are little horses in this Island, which the Inhabitants call Shelties; they are so very small that one may lay his leg over them from the ground; but notwithstanding their Smallness they are both strong and active, and live many years, even till they are blind with Age: I have heard say, some of them live till they are upwards of thirty, and they are never kept within Doors, but are foaled in the Fields, live in the Fields, and die in the Fields. They do little Work, unless it be to carry some Sea Weed, to dung the Ground in the Seed-Time. There is no Horse-hire."

Throughout the narratives of eye-witnesses we find everywhere the fact that the ponies are reared and kept in conditions of great hardship. A Highland Society's report in 1801 tells us that "the horses live in the open fields, summer and winter, night and day, and never get a mouthful except what they can gather, not even when the ground is covered with snow. At the season of labour they are, of consequence, miserable, lean, and weak; so late as the middle of June they are little else than skin and bone, covered with long hair like goats, yet, even in that situation, their spirit is astonishingly great."

"They would be more numerous," says Gifford, "if in any way cared for; but they lie out in the open fields summer and winter, and get no food but what they can find for themselves; so in bad winters many of them die with hunger and cold. It will, no doubt, be wondered at by strangers that so little care is taken about these sheep and horses which are so useful and beneficial; the reason whereof is, that the poor inhabitants, having used their utmost endeavours, can scarce find food and shelter for their oxen and cows, without which they could not live; and in hard winters many of them die for want of fodder, so they have none to bestow on their sheep and horses, until they find more time to improve the land."

It should perhaps be kept in mind, as a qualification of these comments, that while dependent on some degree of help in finding food in winter, and especially so in the poorer parts of Shetland, the pony is much less in need of shelter than most other animals, and appears, indeed, to thrive much better even when he is exposed to severe weather conditions than when he is kept indoors. But the lot of the Island pony is still a hard one in the long winters, when the scanty livelihood which he can gather on the mosses, by the dyke-sides, and on the sea-shore is but poorly supplemented by the occasional sheaf of oats which is all that his owner can usually allow him.

The great majority of the ponies in the Islands are in the hands of crofters, either owned by them or held on the system of "halvers," under which merchants or others supply brood mares in return for a half interest in their progeny.

The mares nursing foals are kept usually about the croft until their foals are old enough to follow them to the "Scathold"; other ponies spend their whole summer in the hills, returning to the nearer fields, after the crops are cleared, when the approach of winter makes some additional food necessary.

It is still too common, though less so than formerly, to leave the foals unweaned, with the result that the mares so treated usually foal but once in two years. This wasteful plan is due to the difficulty of finding food for the weaned foals; but the attempted economy so completely defeats its own object that it cannot fail to die out.

In the beginning of last century we find the Highland Society's report, already quoted, referring to "an absurd custom among the farmers of preserving for stallions ... the most unpromising of the young of the species"; and very competent observers state in 1845 that "the ponies are now much smaller in size than they were thirty years ago, entirely owing to the fact that all the best and stoutest are exported, and stallions of the most puny size are allowed to go at large."

It would appear from this that the selective process by which the small size of the pony has been fixed and exaggerated was not, at this period, one deliberately and consciously promoted, but was contrary to the wishes of those who regarded the interest of the breed, and was the result of economic pressure which encouraged the export of the larger and more valuable ponies, leaving the smaller and cheaper stallions to be employed as stud animals. Larger and not smaller ponies were in point of fact desired; and the decline in size, which seems to have taken place at this period, was a consequence of the poverty and perhaps also of the short-sighted thrift of the crofting owners.

This fact, indeed, sets aside the argument of Mr Vero Shaw and others, that the breed must always have been kept pure, because no cross could be used to improve it by reducing its size. The temptation to introduce alien blood came from the opposite motive--a desire to increase size; and when we read that in 1788 "a fine young horse of the Norway breed had perished in a marsh," we see that the materials for cross-breeding, as well as the motive to practise it, were actually in existence--the results probably remaining in the larger ponies now used for draught in Shetland.

It must be observed that a scarcity of really good stallions, probably arising from the same causes as formerly, is still the chief impediment to the improvement of the Shetland pony in his native home. But this cause no longer operates to reduce size, as fashion has created a demand for excessively small ponies, which tempts the poorer owners rather to sell than to keep them.

In 1865 we have the first record of an actual attempt to reduce the size of the pony, in the very interesting notes on Shetland pony breeding made by "The Druid" in 'Field and Fern.'

"Colonel Balfour, grandfather to the present proprietor of Shapinsay, began pony breeding at the end of the last century. He improved the form; and when the colours did not come as they expected, the natives, with a few drops of whiskey to quicken them, laid the entire blame on Spunky, the Orcadian water-kelpie.

"He was black, they say, and the sire of some of the finest original ponies of the islands; and if he was disturbed in his courtships, he vanished under the waves in a mass of blue flame.

"The Hellersay stock have been quite able to dispense with him, as North Unst has furnished them with some of its choicest jewels.

"Brisk, the chestnut, dates very far back, and headed the Balfour stud for wellnigh thirty years, and his brother Swift was in the flesh for nearly forty-six.

"The piebald Cameron cost ?24, and although he rather spoilt the colours, he introduced a better shape, a smaller head, and decidedly truer action. Odin, of the same colour, also kept up the form; Thor got them nearly all skewbalds like himself; and Lord Minimus was a grey and sire of grey beauties. They are shifted from island to island as the grass suits, and require the most careful drafting to keep them at nine hands. Mr Balfour has about 40 in all, of which the majority are duns and creams; and they are always broken at three, and made very tractable in a week. Her Majesty has a pair of them; and some of the more fancy colours were once picked up by Ducrow."

Colonel Balfour, whose enterprise is referred to by "The Druid," was probably the first to attempt breed improvement in the Shetland pony. His grandson, in "The Druid's" day, was in all likelihood the first breeder who made a systematic and deliberate effort to accentuate the small size which the poverty of nature and man had already fixed as a breed-characteristic; and his example has not been very widely followed in Shetland.

It cannot, in fact, be said that, on the whole, any clear idea dominates the plans or purposes of pony breeders in the Islands. Individual breeders here and there have pursued an enlightened course in endeavouring to improve their herds; and it is natural that their choice of breeding stock should have been determined largely by the nature of the commercial demand. They have thus been led to concentrate their attention mainly on the production of animals with the weight of body and strength of bone which have been demanded by British and foreign buyers. On the other hand, the conditions of existence in Shetland have greatly contributed to the preservation of an active type of pony such as can gain its livelihood on the poor and mossy pastures of the Islands.

It must be remembered that in many districts there has been, as has already been said, a great dearth of good sires, so that selection of suitable breeding stock has been difficult, and mating has often been carried on, of necessity, very much at haphazard. It is thus all the more remarkable that the pony, so long neglected and so little cultivated in its home, should display so high a degree of excellence as it does. Much of the credit of this belongs to the Marquis of Londonderry, whose stud in Bressay, under the charge of Mr Brydon and Mr Meiklejohn, developed a strain of ponies which fixed many of the best qualities of the breed and became a potent centre of its improvement; and no account of the Island ponies would be complete which did not mention the successful activity of Messrs John Anderson & Sons of Hillswick, the late Mr Bruce of Sumburgh, Mr Anderson Manson, and the Messrs Sandison. Notable throughout Shetland, the fine quality of the pony is specially conspicuous in Unst, which still retains the superiority which "The Druid" found in it in 1865. "The best ponies come from Unst; but both there and everywhere the breeders are far too indifferent to the points of a sire, as long as they are foal-getters. About a quarter of Unst has a skeleton of red sandstone and serpentine, with a thin soil studded with large red stones and the knobs of rock sticking up. Yet among these rocky incumbrances one sees scores of ponies picking the green grass, which the light of Heaven and the breath of the Gulf Stream force up from so barren-looking a bed. Still, Unst may be regarded as the heart of Shetland; and a sunny, genial-looking spot it is, when other parts of the country are dismal enough, in the late northern spring. The heather and the bog-grasses elsewhere do not make much milk, and the mare ponies sink so much in condition that they are invariably barren every other year. If well kept they reach 44 inches; but the average is from 38 to 42. Their owners frequently lose sight of them for a couple of summers, and recognise them when wanted, not by any formal 'Exmoor Brand' on the saddle place or the hoof, but by a peculiar slit or bits of tape, clout, or leather tied through a hole in the ear. Each cottar has generally a few ponies on the hill, and when the May and October sales at the different stations are at hand they circumvent them for a selection by the dealers with a line of forty or fifty fathoms. Still, the hard-working Shetlander is little more than nominal lord of his pony: poverty is his lot from the cradle to the grave, and, as the phrase goes, he is 'still in tow.' In his dire need the merchants become his mortgagees, just as the curers are to the herring-fishers: they advance money on the security of his foals, and he doesn't get the best of it with 'halvers' mares."

The chief defects of the Island ponies are to be found in the movement and conformation of the hocks--"cow hocks" being common, and also a tendency to excessive bending of the joints. There is, in fact, a look of "curbiness" about many of the ponies which renders it surprising that curb itself--like almost every other unsoundness--occurs but rarely. How far these hock defects are caused or aggravated by undue hardship in early life cannot easily be estimated, but they can certainly be greatly mitigated by more generous treatment. Apart from them--and from a tendency to roach backs, undoubtedly aggravated by poor rearing--the Island ponies present few common defects that are practically serious; but their general appearance is often much deteriorated by insufficient care in early life.

In colour the pony is much more variegated in the Islands than on the British mainland, where black and brown increasingly predominate. In some parts of Shetland--notably in the western district of Sandness--piebalds and skewbalds are more common than self-coloured ponies; while chestnuts, yellow duns, and mouse-duns are exceedingly frequent.

But we still find as "The Druid" did in 1865: "Duns are in great request; but the colour is not so much an object if the bone be only good. Greys and chestnuts are scarce; bay has not its wonted supremacy; and bays and blacks are most common. Some buyers began to go against piebalds from a belief that they had Iceland blood in them, and were softer and slower in consequence."

The employment of Shetland ponies in Shetland is now much less than it was formerly. Speaking generally, they have become a breeding stock, kept for sale rather than for work. Somewhat larger ponies--from 11 to 12 1/2 hands--are in very common use in carts; and these are probably cross-bred ponies partly of Shetland ancestry. But the introduction of wheeled vehicles in the latter part of last century almost made an end, in practice, of the pony as a means of transport in its own home.

The fact--apt to be forgotten in controversies about Shetland pony type--is that the pony never until quite recently was a draught animal. Roads did not exist in Shetland until they were made, in and after 1847, in order to give employment for the relief of distress caused by the potato famine. Till then wheeled vehicles were practically unknown, and the ponies were used only as pack and saddle animals. We read of them "travelling through the country among the rocks and mosses"; and Edmonstone gives us a luminous glimpse at once of Shetland society and of the stature of the riding ponies:--

"Winter is the season of general mirth and festivity in Zetland, although the wish to visit each other is greatly interrupted by the difficulties which are attendant on travelling. As there are no regular roads, a journey over land is a serious undertaking, for the ground is wet and unequal and the ponies are low."

One seems to see the cavalcade picking its way through the moss, riders holding up their feet to avoid the soft ground through which their mounts find a path, and ladies tremulous over the fate of the precious burdens of the pack-ponies.

Hibbert gives us an even more complete picture of the Shetland pony in use a hundred years ago:--

"A walk through the valley near Woodwick leads to a large open lawn at the end of the Loch of Cliff, which seemed very populous and well cultivated. I arrived there on the Sabbath morning; the natives of the Vale were all in motion in their way to the Kirk of Baliasta. The peasant had returned home from the bleak scathold, where he had ensnared the unshod pony that was destined to convey him to the parish kirk. No currycomb was applied to the animal's mane, which, left to nature's care, 'ruffled at speed and danc'd in every wind.' The nag was graced with a modern saddle and bridle, while on his neck was hung a hair-cord, several yards in length, well bundled up, from the extremity of which dangled a wooden short-pointed stake. The Shetlander then mounted his tiny courser, his suspended heels scarcely spurning the ground. But among the goodly company journeying to the kirk, females and boys graced the back of the shelty with much more effect than long-legged adults of the male sex, whose toes were often obliged to be suddenly raised for the purpose of escaping the contact of an accidental boulder that was strewed in the way. A bevy of fair ladies next made their appearance, seated in like manner on the dwarfish steeds of the country, who swept over the plain with admirable fleetness, and witch'd the world with noble horsemanship. The parishioners at length arrived near the kirk, when each rider in succession, whether of high or low degree, looked out for as green a site of ground as could be selected, and, after dismounting, carefully unravelled the tether which had been tied to the neck of the animal. The stake at the end of the cord was then fixed into the ground, and the steed appeared to be as satisfactorily provided for during the divine service as in any less aboriginal district of Britain, where it would be necessary to ride up to an inn, and to commit the care of the horse to some saucy lordling of the stables."

Peat-carrying appears to have been one of the main duties of the pony in the early part of last century.

Till recent times, long after the ridden shelties had given place to the road-using gig, ponies were almost universally employed as carriers of peat.

In the remoter Islands, ponies are still to be seen carrying creels of peats: but even this is now an extinct use in most districts. The pure-bred pony in the Islands has never been a draught animal to any great extent; and with the introduction of wheeled conveyances its employment has almost entirely disappeared.

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