who build up stacks of hay and straw, which are doled out to them in times of snow. "Still, like honest, hard-working labourers, the ponies never assemble at the wicket till they have exhausted every means of self-support by scratching with their fore-feet in the snow for the remnants of the summer tufts, and drag wearily behind them an ever lengthening chain of snowballs."
A writer in All The Year Round for May, 1866, says:—
"Throughout North Devon and Somersetshire and wherever ponies are famed, the Exmoor breed have a great reputation, not without reason, for they are not only hardy and sure-footed, but from their earliest years the foals follow their dams at a gallop down the crees of loose stones on the steep moorland sides; they are extraordinarily active and courageous. The writer once saw an Exmoor, only 44 inches high, jump out of a pound 5 feet 6 inches in height, just touching the top bar with his hind feet."
Well, let a visitor go to Bampton Fair, and see the pranks of these wild, beautiful creatures, and note as well the skill with which they are managed by the men experienced in dealing with them. Such a sight will remain in his memory, and when he gets back to town he will have something to talk about at dinner, and if he has a bit of descriptive power in him he will hold the ears of those who are near him at table.
Note.—Harding (Lt.-Col.), The History of Tiverton. Tiverton, 1845.
