fair amount of regularity. But times have altered, and manners and peoples have changed with them since the decades sacred to the Taits and the Fishers, and the horse, and his rider, too, are not the same. The old blood which we cherished some sixty years ago has disappeared, and we wonder if it is for the better. Sir Hercules, Yattendon, Chester, The Barb, Kelpie, Fireworks, Tim Whiffler, Fisherman, Angler, Maribyrnong, Kingston, The Marquis, Newminster, of all those heroes of old not a trace, on the male side of the house, is left behind. With the opening century commenced the invasion of English sires, and in the same fashion as the Norway rat of old ate up and exterminated his brown English cousin, so has the imported blood from England exterminated our old-time Australian horse. To-day, in the list of winning sires, the first sixteen are imported horses, and out of the first hundred, seventy-eight were foaled in the British Isles. Of the two and twenty that were dropped in Australia, many came from English parents, and each one at least owns to an English grandsire. In the entire long list there are but a couple of the descendants of Chester that claim any winners at all, and these, sons of Carlyon, are lower than the two hundredth place. But that we are still capable of rearing dominant and pre-potent blood sires in our climate, and nourished on Australian pasture, is evident from the fact that, within recent years, Malster, Bobadil and Wallace have been powerful factors in the production of our winners, and this gallant trio, one or other of them, have headed the poll, and that many times. But they are dropping out, those three, and ere another generation has passed away, practically every winning sire will be an importation. Even the very foundation stones of our studs have been turned topsy turvy and thrown away, since the days of Macarthur, Icely, the Fishers and Tait. In their eras the blood of Herod was in the forefront of the battle, although, as time went on, Birdcatcher, and from him Stockwell, encroached upon his domain, and finally settled the house of Eclipse on his unshakeable throne. The advent of Musket brought Touchstone to the front, and still further strengthened the Eclipse blood. But the greatest revolution of all was accomplished when Bill of Portland, a son of St. Simon, of the tribe of Blacklock, of the house of Eclipse, landed in Australia. So tremendous was the success of the sons and daughters of the brown horse, more especially when mated with Musket mares, that no newly imported sire seemed to have a chance of success unless he were imbued with that same St. Simon strain. The effect is still in the strongest evidence to-day.