conditions and has developed characteristics not found in any other breed of horses. His weight is from 500 to 600 pounds, though some run a little heavier. The mane is very thick and long; the tail is a great brush about ten inches in diameter and unless clipped drags upon the ground. In the driving wind, rain or sleet, the pony turns his tail to the storm and with lowered head, if untethered, walks out the gale. The wind spreads the thick hair over his hips and even though matted upon the surface with sleet it becomes an admirable protection. The hair of the tail is very long and is used by the farmers for making ropes to bind hay. The horses are well built, usually fat, free from blemishes, slender in the legs, wide between the eyes, broad backed and deep chested. Their sagacity is remarkable. In fording rivers, in crossing the ragged lava, in picking their way over stone-strewn heaths, across quaking bogs, or in the rugged defiles or on the precipitous slopes of the trailless mountains, they are the wisest, kindest, surest and the finest saddle horses. The endurance of these little steeds is a continual surprise to the stranger. In the bogs and in rubble riding they are extremely cautious and if they are allowed to negotiate the difficult places in their own way, will never bring the rider to grief. I said they were sure footed and the fact that I have been thrown a few times is not contrary to the statement. When a pony is ridden at an eight mile pace down a declivity thickly strewn with loose stones, if he stumbles three times a month it should not be attributed to the pony as a fault but rather to the recklessness of his rider. Their living is obtained entirely out of doors. In the spring the young horses are driven into the mountains where they run wild until late in the autumn when they are taken to the farm for the winter. It is only occasionally during the most severe portion of the winter that they are provided with hay and never with grain, except work-horses in the city. When four years old they are broken to the saddle. There are about 50,000 ponies in the country and hundreds are exported to Denmark and Scotland yearly. The steamer upon which we returned from Iceland the first summer carried 376 ponies. The saddle ponies have different steps, some amble, some trot, some gallop, some pace,—all have at least two of these methods while some of them have all of these methods and a good rider can take his choice or have his pony change from one to another.