The taste for green pasture is so far forgotten that range horses will swim rivers and break fences to escape from the richest of meadows and get to the desert hillsides which seem to grow nothing but stones. Where sheep tear the bunch grass out by the roots and leave stark desert, the horses' lips and teeth are so delicately adapted to this feeding that they never uproot the plant. [Sidenote: The grazing rules] It is a sound rule that range ponies do not travel beyond their necessities of grass and water. Leaving the water, they graze outwards, forming a trampled area which widens daily as they feed at the edges. So, riding across the rich and untouched grass lands of the south-western deserts, I have come to a line where the pasturage ended abruptly, and beyond were innumerable pony tracks leading from six to ten miles to a water hole. The wild horse looked upon that ring area as the tame horse does a stable, with water and feed conveniently arranged. That was his home, and if man or the storm, or wolves drove him a couple of hundred miles away to better feed and water, he would always break back at the first chance, travelling steadily with little delay for grazing. A horse's neck is exactly long enough for {59} grazing on level ground, but I never saw one try to graze downhill. Neither does he readily graze directly up any steep place, preferring to quarter along the hillside, rising very slightly. [Sidenote: Rules in grazing] His first rule in grazing then is to crop uphill. But the moment the air stirs he applies his second grazing rule, which is "feed up wind." If he had the man's way of reasoning, he would argue thus, "If I graze down wind I smell myself, the grass, and the dust. But if I graze up wind I get the air clean to my nostrils, and can smell an enemy in time to fight or run." His third rule is to graze if possible homeward or towards shelter. If the grass is plentiful he feeds quickly, and has time for rest on warm sheltered ground or in the lee of timber. If food is scant, he gets no time for rest. On the natural range there are hollows to which the surface waters have carried the ashes of burned grass. These alkali licks are needed to keep horses in health; but rock salt in the stable seems to meet their wants. Failing that they will lick brick walls. Even the licking of a man's hand is a means of getting salt from the skin rather than making love. {60} II. BETWEEN GRASS AND WATER. The best way to measure the distance and the sort of ground which the ancient herds were accustomed to traverse between grass and water, is to study the conduct of a horse in dealing with steep places. [Sidenote: Horses on cliffs]